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Broadband in Failand As the result of our campaign, the Long Ashton exchange, which most Failand lines are on, was enabled for ADSL broadband in 2003. ADSL Max has been available since 2006, providing download speeds of over 3Mbps (Megabits per second) in the Failand triangle area. We are not likely to see any further increase in speed until the 21CN switchover of the Long Aston exchange. This had been planned for 2010, but BT have now abandoned their original dates and only the Weston-super-Mare exchange in North Somerset has been switched over. They are now saying "By Spring 2011 BT plans to extend its coverage to exchanges serving up to 75% of UK homes & businesses". 75% sounds impressive but will actually include only about 30% of exchanges (those in towns the size of Nailsea or bigger) and is unlikely to include an exchange with as few lines (2,437) as Long Ashton. We will need to rely on the Coalition government programme to rollout broadband: "We will introduce measures to ensure the rapid roll-out of superfast broadband across the country. We will ensure that BT and other infrastructure providers allow the use of their assets to deliver such broadband, and we will seek to introduce superfast broadband in remote areas at the same time as in more populated areas. If necessary, we will consider using the part of the TV licence fee that is supporting the digital switchover to fund broadband in areas that the market alone will not reach." P14 Coalition government programme (pdf) The switchover will make ADSL2+ available and give the potential for fibre to the cabinet (FTTC). Broadband outage There was a major broadband outage affecting the Long Ashton exchange which Failand is on from 10am on Sunday, 18 July to 1am on Monday morning. Some residents were unable to get a broadband connection for some of this period, others were unaffected. Various ISPs were affected as this was a BT network fault. Our best guess to why only some residents were affected is that if your router tried to renew the connection during this period, you were locked out because there was a problem establishing the connection (PPP), but if you remained connected there was no problem. ADSL Max ADSL Max automatically adjusts the download speed to the maximum your line can physically support. In the Hill Drive area of Failand this is about 3.5Mbps. Most ISPs now provide ADSL Max as their standard broadband offering for about £20 per month. Good choices of ISP for speed, reliably and customer services are Zen, Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) and BE. Click here to open a new window where you can compare ISPs. The better providers like those listed have contract terms of 1 month, others trap you into a 1 year contract, so check the contract term before signing up.
Numbers 01275 39**** in the Failand triange area are on the Long Ashton exchange. Numbers 01275 37**** in Lower Failand are on the Pill exchange which is actually located towards Abbots Leigh. A few properties with numbers 01275 85**** in the Charlton Drive area are on the Nailsea exchange. Give us your line stats It would be useful for improvement of the network in Failand if you can email us the connection speed and SNR you are achieving. These are available from the home page of your router eg for Netgear routers via the Router Status link in the main menu. We want to know the downstream speed eg 4448000 and noise margin (SNR) if known eg 8.5db. Please email us your data via the link in the left column. Can't get broadband? A number of residents have been told by their ISP or BT that they cannot get broadband. Do not believe this information even if it comes from a BT engineer. Try a good ISP such as Andrews & Arnold. They can often get broadband for people who have been told they cannot get it. The 21CN switchover will make the exchange work like the internet, using data packets. There will be no apparent change for users, but ADSL2+ will become available and the potential for fibre to the cabinet (FTTC). ADSL2+ is faster and more stable than ADSL. You will need an ADSL2+ router to benefit from the higher speeds, a basic ADSL router (ADSL1) will continue to work at existing speeds. Most current routers are ADSL2+ but you will not see higher speeds until the exchange is switched over. You can get an idea of the speed from this graph:
Find your Line Attenuation from the status page of your router. Mine in Hill Drive is 44.5dB which would indicate a potential speed of about 7Mbps, compared with 4Mbps I am currently getting with ADSL1. You can see from the graph that ADSL2+ extends out to very high attenuation so may be helpful to people in Failand with poor quality lines who have difficulty getting a stable connection with ADSL1. Fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) will involve running an optical cable from the Long Ashton exchange up Providence to the green cabinet by the Failand traffic lights, either underground or on telegraph poles. From there to your home, existing copper lines will be used. Speeds from FTTC will be up to 40Mbps depending on distance from the cabinet. BT have announced they will initially only roll out FTTC to urban areas, so we will have to campaign to get the Failand cabinet upgraded. At this stage make local councillors aware of the issue: we want Fibre to the cabinet in Failand as soon as is practical. www.failand.org.uk |
