On Wednesday, 14 October 2020 20:44:30 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:


It seems to be a regional thing, but there was actually quite a good map
like that for our area:

https://www.superfastessex.org/inter...s/rollout-map/

You could drill down to individual properties and see what the status
was. For a couple of years we were in a shaded area saying "might get an
upgrade in the next tranche of work" kind of message.

But often, these things are only as good as the data.

That is pretty much what I did - using OpenStreetmap (or something) and checking status for each property!

I think it was actually persuasive - made it really obvious where neighbours had ultrafast and "might mange 6 Mbps if you are really lucky".

Looking back, it appears that someone made a few mistakes either with
the original installs, or how they recorded the information.

It could also be that not al properties were supplied from the same
cabinet.

Definitely the one cabinet. Still the one cabinet feeds all of us.

The people who did the work were excellent. Friendly. Worked hard and
long hours. Came from up to several hundred miles away as well as
some locals.

Yup, ours were good. The install of the actual fibre along the street
seemed to be mostly the work of one chap working for KMCO, on his own.
He climbed each pole in turn, pulled along and fixed the next segment of
wire, and then every few poles installed a junction box ready for the
drops to the properties. He came knocking on my door to ask if he could
park on our drive and climb the pole buried in the hedge in the garden.


Afraid the few ISPs which at the time would offer FTTP were either
much more expensive or unimpressive outfits. A&A, for example, were
more expensive and had a download cap.

You often get what you pay for in service though. Of the more budget
providers, Plusnet tend to be somewhat better in that respect than the
big four.

I already had and account with IDNet so it was much easier to go with
them so I kept my static IP etc. They were initially slightly more
expensive than BT for the 160/30 service, and noticeable so for the
330/50 - however their prices fell to about the same after a few months.

I can see that there might be reasons but in the nearly-a-year we have had no significant issues. The very occasional few seconds of dropping out. And, though better than they used to be, I still dislike their routers.

The companies that came out well were Openreach (once they made their
decision to go ahead), BT, and Plusnet. Our annual renewal with
Plusnet had only just been done when the FTTC option appeared.

Plusnet did participate in a FTTP trial, but then decided not to offer
it as a service for some reason.

That was something of a surprise - I think I found out they had withdrawn between news we were getting FTTP and it actually arriving.

Despite their T&C saying we were stuck with them, Plusnet did agree
it would be unfair and agreed a refund. They were very pleasant to
deal with.

Yup they are usually not too bad, although not as good as they once were
with 24/7 support etc.

Thinking about it, I did have to send email to chief exec's office (or whatever) because their drone-level did not have the authority. But, as I said, once we explained, they were excellent.

'Tis funny how experiences vary enormously. But I would never, ever, ever, have gone with TalkTalk. Especially now Play-DiDoh Harding has re-demonstrated her utter ineptness for, well, everything.