On 28/02/2014 09:28, Huge wrote:
On 2014-02-27, Andy Burns wrote:
Huge wrote:

it's a SmartUPS 2200, s/h on eBay. That might not be a "big" UPS
by your standards, but it was by mine.

I've got a couple of those, both saved from being skipped and a 1400,
they're fairly "cold war" design, never see to go wrong. Last time I
replaced the batteries with 3rd party equivalents they seemed a
reasonable price, need doing again and the prices seem to have shot-up.

Mine needs new batteries and the cost of them has put me off replacing
them. Fortunately, we haven't had a power cut for ages.

Find the right lead acid battery in AH and shape (deep discharge)
somewhere like RapidOnline and it will be half the price of the official
rebadged ones sold for UPS or wheelchair user ripoffs.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Martin Brown wrote:

Huge wrote:

it's a SmartUPS 2200

needs new batteries and the cost of them has put me off replacing
them.

Find the right lead acid battery in AH and shape (deep discharge)
somewhere like RapidOnline and it will be half the price of the official
rebadged ones sold for UPS or wheelchair user ripoffs.

Of course, last time I used Yuasa ones, now even the "neverheardofem"
brands seem twice the price I paid ...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180709291829

The 2200's take four batteries each, the 1400 takes a pair, not that I'd
need all three UPSes in use.

On 28/02/2014 00:31, MattyF wrote:
....
We have one or more power cuts a year, usually because someone has
knocked down a power pole. Here's a lady knocking my pole down very
slowly:
http://i50.tinypic.com/ruy728.jpg

We had 110kV underground to the central city. People kept hitting it with
diggers. Eventually the four cables failed, and it took five weeks to get
the power on again to the central city:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Auckland_power_crisis

Then they spent over $100 million digging a tunnel for the cables. It has
a railway line inside it. Piece of cake to fix now!


The Christchurch earthquake didn't do their underground cables a lot of
good either.

Colin Bignell

On 27/02/2014 22:14, tony sayer wrote:
In article , Nightjar
scribeth thus
On 27/02/2014 18:40, tony sayer wrote:
In article , Nightjar
scribeth thus
...
... but undergrounding has problems of its own.

Like what?. In comparison to overhead?..

More difficult to upgrade. Can be damaged by ground movement. Prone to
getting digger shovels through them. Faults normally take a lot longer
to trace and repair (digger shovels excluded).

Colin Bignell


Overall less bother so I've noticed over some 20 years at several
locations..

On new build's and estates you never, least round this way, see overhead
delivered services..

For the simple reason that the developer, and hence the first buyer,
pays the full cost to the electricity infrastructure company.


--
Peter Crosland

On 27/02/2014 15:33, Michael Chare wrote:

The real problem is that the government don't enforce high enough
penalties when electricity supplies fail.

Worse than that, when there is bad weather the amount that the suppliers
have to pay by way of compensation to customers who have been cut off is
halved.

Since the '87 storm my supply was failed three times because of falling
trees hitting overhead lines. The last time was this month. We were cut
off for 48 hours. Nothing was done to correct the problem for the first
30 hours, probably because other problems were being attended to. There
would have been a 4th time just before last Christmas, fortunately the
tree just clipped the line as it fell and only cause a temporary outage.

If the electricity supplier cut down all the trees that could hit the
lines if they fell, or put the cables underground the problem would be
avoided.

The conditions this winter were really exceptional. Realistically the
infrastructure companies are going to deal with faults affecting a large
number of customers first. Increasing penalties is not a realistic
solution because the costs of have extra staff and equipment available
for events that only happen occasionally would simply be uneconomic. As
for cutting down trees a lot of this is done on a precautionary basis
but in many cases the owner will not allow the work to be done. Neither
is putting many rural lines underground an economic reality. Essentially
powers cuts are just the reality of living in rural areas.


--
Peter Crosland

In message , Dave Baker
writes
In the 25 years I lived in my last house in southern suburbia I can
count the number of times the lecky went out on the fingers of one
heavily mutilated hand. Since moving to the middle of feckin nowhere in
Aberdeenshire it's been about a dozen times in 18 months.

We started off with a spate of them in 2012, then it settled down for a
while, we had another one last back end and then it went out for an
hour and a half yesterday again. Several have been in the middle of the
night where I only realise it happened because the clock on the cooker
is flashing and has lost its settings when I get up.

I'd assumed it was just some specific fault on a wire local to our
little enclave here which some bugger really ought to get round to
fixing properly but finally I phoned up the power company yesterday
when the phone started working again and it had knocked out the power
to 352 houses over a several mile area and was reported in as "an
explosion at the top of a power pole in someone's garden".

He also looked up the previous outage and that was over a wide area
too. So no general problem with our local supply, just sod's law it
seems. Branches falling onto cables etc.

So I'm happy it isn't just my house or its supply but surprised it
happens so often. Is this just a "living in the sticks" sort of thing
we have to get used to?
Don't worry Mr Salmond says it will all be sorted once Scotland is
independent.
--
bert

In message , Peter
Crosland writes
On 27/02/2014 15:33, Michael Chare wrote:

The real problem is that the government don't enforce high enough
penalties when electricity supplies fail.

Worse than that, when there is bad weather the amount that the suppliers
have to pay by way of compensation to customers who have been cut off is
halved.

Since the '87 storm my supply was failed three times because of falling
trees hitting overhead lines. The last time was this month. We were cut
off for 48 hours. Nothing was done to correct the problem for the first
30 hours, probably because other problems were being attended to. There
would have been a 4th time just before last Christmas, fortunately the
tree just clipped the line as it fell and only cause a temporary outage.

If the electricity supplier cut down all the trees that could hit the
lines if they fell, or put the cables underground the problem would be
avoided.

The conditions this winter were really exceptional. Realistically the
infrastructure companies are going to deal with faults affecting a
large number of customers first. Increasing penalties is not a
realistic solution because the costs of have extra staff and equipment
available for events that only happen occasionally would simply be
uneconomic. As for cutting down trees a lot of this is done on a
precautionary basis but in many cases the owner will not allow the work
to be done. Neither is putting many rural lines underground an economic
reality. Essentially powers cuts are just the reality of living in rural areas.


I get fed up with all these people whinging about level of services in
rural areas. According to a survey by NFU Mutual 78% of people who live
in rural areas have chosen to move there from towns and cities.
I was born and raised in such an area and wild horses wouldn't drag me
back.
--
bert

On 28/02/2014 08:41, tony sayer wrote:
In article , Michael
Chare mUNDERSCOREnews@chareDOTorgDOTuk.? scribeth thus
On 27/02/2014 18:46, tony sayer wrote:

The real problem is that the government don't enforce high enough
penalties when electricity supplies fail.

Worse than that, when there is bad weather the amount that the suppliers
have to pay by way of compensation to customers who have been cut off is
halved.

Since the '87 storm my supply was failed three times because of falling
trees hitting overhead lines.

That was a bit of a one in "x" year's event;!..

That is just the trees that are local enough for me to see what
happened. There are many more power cuts.


The last time was this month. We were cut
off for 48 hours. Nothing was done to correct the problem for the first
30 hours, probably because other problems were being attended to. There
would have been a 4th time just before last Christmas, fortunately the
tree just clipped the line as it fell and only cause a temporary outage.

If the electricity supplier cut down all the trees that could hit the
lines if they fell, or put the cables underground the problem would be
avoided.

Now your asking;!.


I have a similar problem with my BT phone line however in that case I
have ordered an underground fibre connection which I am hoping will be
more reliable. I will be disappointed if the broadband Internet is not
100 times faster.



Got to be Virgin Media then;?...

Gigaclear


Ah!, community broadband. There seem to be some of those springing up
around this area.

http://www.airbroadband.co.uk/

This one is using wireless delivery on I believe 5.8 Ghz which IMHO
isn't the best choice of frequency as anyone and everyone will be
entitled to use those frequency bands.

So the Gigaclear system is that fibre delivered in which case they must
have dug up all the area served to lay ducts or is that radio delivered
too, if you know?..

It makes me wonder if they can do that why can't BT or VM do it?.


Gigaclear are due to lay the underground fibres in the next few months.
I am keeping a sharp look out for diggers.

To make the project economic, Gigaclear require 30% of local residents
to sign up. Achieving this level of commitment took considerable effort
from local people.

If BT had taken a similar approach they would probably have found it
easier to get that level of commitment.

I don't think wireless is viable where I live due to the undulating
nature of the land, not to mention the trees.




However there were several radio broadband systems came online in the
area around Cambridge, but as soon as the local exchange was enabled up
off people went to broadband by wire. Usually the lack of aerials on the
roof appealed to most subscribers. Makes me wonder if the same might
happen again or perhaps we'll see the likes of G/Clear being swallowed
up by bigger players as time goes by like perhaps err BT;?..


One of Gigaclear's selling points is that if they go broke, the likes of
BT will want to buy up the fibre network.


As to your 100 times faster, much less then that is fine We've been on
the 30 meg service from VM for a few years now and its fine. Sir Richard
with his mate Mr Bolt tell us that we're to have 60 for the same price
in the summer which is fine by me...


I don't really know how much difference a faster connection will really
make to my life. The iPlayer on my TV should work, but I am not going to
make more purchases on Amazon.

--
Michael Chare

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 12:38:52 +0000, bert wrote:

I get fed up with all these people whinging about level of services in
rural areas. According to a survey by NFU Mutual 78% of people who live
in rural areas have chosen to move there from towns and cities.
I was born and raised in such an area and wild horses wouldn't drag me
back.

I grew up in suburban Sheffield until I was 10, and we moved out to the
Peak District. Then I went down to London for Uni, and stayed around
commuter-belt M25 until last year. Now, we're in the Welsh borders, and
you wouldn't get me back into a major town or city for love nor money.

On 28/02/2014 11:22, Peter Crosland wrote:
On 27/02/2014 15:33, Michael Chare wrote:

The real problem is that the government don't enforce high enough
penalties when electricity supplies fail.

Worse than that, when there is bad weather the amount that the suppliers
have to pay by way of compensation to customers who have been cut off is
halved.

Since the '87 storm my supply was failed three times because of falling
trees hitting overhead lines. The last time was this month. We were cut
off for 48 hours. Nothing was done to correct the problem for the first
30 hours, probably because other problems were being attended to. There
would have been a 4th time just before last Christmas, fortunately the
tree just clipped the line as it fell and only cause a temporary outage.

If the electricity supplier cut down all the trees that could hit the
lines if they fell, or put the cables underground the problem would be
avoided.

The conditions this winter were really exceptional. Realistically the
infrastructure companies are going to deal with faults affecting a large
number of customers first. Increasing penalties is not a realistic
solution because the costs of have extra staff and equipment available
for events that only happen occasionally would simply be uneconomic. As
for cutting down trees a lot of this is done on a precautionary basis
but in many cases the owner will not allow the work to be done. Neither
is putting many rural lines underground an economic reality. Essentially
powers cuts are just the reality of living in rural areas.



Trees falling across power lines is an easily avoidable problem. If the
existing wayleaves don't allow enough trees to be cut down, then the
government should change the law. The work can be done year round.

Leaving the trees standing and waiting till many of them fall down in a
strong wind might cost the power companies, but it inconveniences
customers. That is why higher penalties are needed for this type of
failure.


--
Michael Chare

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 12:59:24 +0000, Michael Chare wrote:

Trees falling across power lines is an easily avoidable problem. If the
existing wayleaves don't allow enough trees to be cut down, then the
government should change the law.

The law already allows the power companies to get a court order to
enforce minimum separation distances.

In article , Michael
Chare mUNDERSCOREnews@chareDOTorgDOTuk.? scribeth thus
On 28/02/2014 11:22, Peter Crosland wrote:
On 27/02/2014 15:33, Michael Chare wrote:

The real problem is that the government don't enforce high enough
penalties when electricity supplies fail.

Worse than that, when there is bad weather the amount that the suppliers
have to pay by way of compensation to customers who have been cut off is
halved.

Since the '87 storm my supply was failed three times because of falling
trees hitting overhead lines. The last time was this month. We were cut
off for 48 hours. Nothing was done to correct the problem for the first
30 hours, probably because other problems were being attended to. There
would have been a 4th time just before last Christmas, fortunately the
tree just clipped the line as it fell and only cause a temporary outage.

If the electricity supplier cut down all the trees that could hit the
lines if they fell, or put the cables underground the problem would be
avoided.

The conditions this winter were really exceptional. Realistically the
infrastructure companies are going to deal with faults affecting a large
number of customers first. Increasing penalties is not a realistic
solution because the costs of have extra staff and equipment available
for events that only happen occasionally would simply be uneconomic. As
for cutting down trees a lot of this is done on a precautionary basis
but in many cases the owner will not allow the work to be done. Neither
is putting many rural lines underground an economic reality. Essentially
powers cuts are just the reality of living in rural areas.



Trees falling across power lines is an easily avoidable problem. If the
existing wayleaves don't allow enough trees to be cut down, then the
government should change the law. The work can be done year round.

I believe they do have power to make landowners give access 'tho they
have to go to court to get them...


Leaving the trees standing and waiting till many of them fall down in a
strong wind might cost the power companies, but it inconveniences
customers. That is why higher penalties are needed for this type of
failure.


...


--
Tony Sayer

Michael Chare wrote:
On 27/02/2014 16:33, Nightjar wrote:

How much extra would you be willing to pay for your electricity to
achieve that level of maintenance?

A small increase in cost would be OK if reliability was improved.

A small increase in cost would raise them a small increase in profits
and nothing else.

To my mind, companies (of all types) seem to have become very short
sighted these days - "Profit at all costs" would seem to be the motto of
many. That's not to say I'm some lefty loonie crying on the evils of
money making, but just that if Railtrack worked out they could flog the
track for scrap and make a bigger profit for one year, and one year only
of course, then they would.

--
Scott

Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 09:38:39 +0000, Martin Brown wrote:

Find the right lead acid battery in AH and shape (deep discharge)
somewhere like RapidOnline and it will be half the price of the official
rebadged ones sold for UPS or wheelchair user ripoffs.

The last couple of sets I've bought(*) have come from Value Power
Systems. http://www.vps-ups.co.uk Cheapest place I have found.

(*) The joys of an APC UPS. Well known for cooking their batteries, I
don't much more than 4 years 99.99% standby use from a pair of 12 V 7
AHr batteries. B-)

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 22:16:46 +0000, tony sayer wrote:

Also 352 house is no great load; base load of a house 1 kW, 352
houses,
352 kW @ 11 kV is only 32 A.

And when there're all cooking up the Xmas lunch;?..

Ovens aren't that big a load 2 kW? and once up to temperature have a
duty cycle. Looks back through power records I think our oven only
adds about 500 W mean. So 48 A rather than 32 A on the 11 kV. I shall
have to ask the next ENW chaps I speak to what the fuse is on the 11
kV lines, 100 A, 200 A?

I'd be more concerned about how many homes have E7. That is a hefty
load at 100% duty cycle for hours. We have a small E7 system, just 9
kW or 12 kW for the hour the HW cyclinder is heating.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 17:18:59 -0800 (PST), wrote:

one could install a separate maintained ring and use "chinese"(*)
plugs and sockets

(*) Looks like a normal 13A plug but the L and N pins are
oriented
vertically and the earth horizontal.
Walsall Gauge.

Easier to just use a different style of 13A socket, eg brown or older
style ones, or label standard ones.

You trust every person likely to be in the house during a power cut
not to plug the kettle into one of these UPS maintained sockets? I
wouldn't, particularly if there are any teenagers or adult females
about.

--
Cheers
Dave.

/ You trust every person likely to be in the house during a power cut not to plug the kettle into one of these UPS maintained sockets? I wouldn't, particularly if there are any teenagers or adult females about.

--Cheers Dave./q

If fancy sockets are around wouldn't they just use the adaptors provided?

Jim K

In article o.uk, Dave
Liquorice scribeth thus
On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 22:16:46 +0000, tony sayer wrote:

Also 352 house is no great load; base load of a house 1 kW, 352
houses,
352 kW @ 11 kV is only 32 A.

And when there're all cooking up the Xmas lunch;?..

Ovens aren't that big a load 2 kW? and once up to temperature have a
duty cycle. Looks back through power records I think our oven only
adds about 500 W mean. So 48 A rather than 32 A on the 11 kV. I shall
have to ask the next ENW chaps I speak to what the fuse is on the 11
kV lines, 100 A, 200 A?

I'd be more concerned about how many homes have E7. That is a hefty
load at 100% duty cycle for hours. We have a small E7 system, just 9
kW or 12 kW for the hour the HW cyclinder is heating.


Did indeed ask a UK Networks bloke just that as he was replacing a fuse
in a supply substation on a large housing estate which had a rather olde
cabinet that contained meters indicating the power flowing, and he said
that diversity does most all of the time work very well indeed.

Also that its just as well that the fuses they used 300 amp ones IIRC
didn't fail at just over the 300 mark but could cope with a lot higher
for short periods;!.

The one he replaced hadn't coped too well..
--
Tony Sayer

In article o.uk, Dave
Liquorice scribeth thus
On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 09:38:39 +0000, Martin Brown wrote:

Find the right lead acid battery in AH and shape (deep discharge)
somewhere like RapidOnline and it will be half the price of the official
rebadged ones sold for UPS or wheelchair user ripoffs.

The last couple of sets I've bought(*) have come from Value Power
Systems. http://www.vps-ups.co.uk Cheapest place I have found.



(*) The joys of an APC UPS. Well known for cooking their batteries, I
don't much more than 4 years 99.99% standby use from a pair of 12 V 7
AHr batteries. B-)


Bloody useless they are too for doing that. Never did get any sensible
reply from Schneider electric on that issue . Tend to use EATON now
don't seem to have that problem thus far...
--
Tony Sayer

On 28/02/2014 00:02, Michael Chare wrote:
On 27/02/2014 16:33, Nightjar wrote:
....
How much extra would you be willing to pay for your electricity to
achieve that level of maintenance?

A small increase in cost would be OK if reliability was improved.

Transmission availability in the UK in 2012/2013 was 99.9999%.
Distribution availability will depend upon your power company, but will
be of much the same order. Improving upon that is likely to involve
rather more than a 'small' increase in cost.

Mind you, if you think reliability is bad now, wait until the reductions
in capacity to meet EU green targets start to bite.

....
Building (more?) redundancy into the circuits would also help.

Your power company would probably build you an extra power line, if you
were willing to pay the cost.

Colin Bignell

On 01/03/14 12:24, Nightjar wrote:
On 28/02/2014 00:02, Michael Chare wrote:
On 27/02/2014 16:33, Nightjar wrote:
...
How much extra would you be willing to pay for your electricity to
achieve that level of maintenance?

A small increase in cost would be OK if reliability was improved.

Transmission availability in the UK in 2012/2013 was 99.9999%.
Distribution availability will depend upon your power company, but will
be of much the same order. Improving upon that is likely to involve
rather more than a 'small' increase in cost.


Round here they did a massive program of tree pruning round the whole
overheads.

Only ONE instance of brownout in the last gale, and no outages for us.

Mind you, if you think reliability is bad now, wait until the reductions
in capacity to meet EU green targets start to bite.


well, yes...

...
Building (more?) redundancy into the circuits would also help.

Your power company would probably build you an extra power line, if you
were willing to pay the cost.

all 11KV are rings.

So in theory you can totally break the circuit. However that doesn't
help if one end is trailing on the ground.

Colin Bignell



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 13:39:45 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

all 11KV are rings.

So in theory you can totally break the circuit. However that doesn't
help if one end is trailing on the ground.

Round here they are rings linked to other rings, with manual switches
that can be opened/closed to isolate a faulty section and feed the
sections unaffected from somewhere else. If the fault isn't on our
section it takes an hour for the engineers to get here and maybe
another hour do the switching. When restoring they close all the
switches that are supposed to be closed then open the ones that are
normally open, no further outage for those not on the faulty section.

Didn't bang one of the switches in hard enough after one cut the
power came back but it ws bouncing about all over the place. Called
DNO, engineer arrived in a few minutes took one look at the
flickering light and ais "I know what that is" few minutes later
short outage and then back solid...

--
Cheers
Dave.

In message , Dave Baker
writes

So I'm happy it isn't just my house or its supply but surprised it
happens so often. Is this just a "living in the sticks" sort of thing
we have to get used to?

We're a little south of you, on the Dee. We had a three hour power cut
one afternoon last week. A sunny day, so we didn't need lights, and
survived comfortably with the fire alight and tea made on a camping gaz
stove. We do have three bottled gas heaters for emergencies, plus
torches, batteries, candles, matches etc., but, in nearly twelve years
north of the border, have had few cuts. The biggest problem is oil. The
worse the weather, the less likely a tanker is to reach us, so we have
had periods of power but no oil. Again, we survive. Gas and electric
heaters, open fire, immersion heater.

Having said all of that, even through the two worst winters a few years
ago, the snow was deep, and oil tankers were the only vehicles not to
get here, but they come south from Huntley. Traffic coming west from
Aberdeen was fine, so the village had mail, bread, milk and everything
else every day. Aberdeenshire council take a lot of flak, but I think
they do a good job, keeping the main roads open, plus most of the minor
roads. The little pavement plough/gritter is usually out before 6 every
morning, in bad weather.

Yes, there is a price to pay for rural living, but would I swap for city
life? NAFC.
--
Graeme

On 01/03/14 21:23, bert wrote:

Peace and quiet is all.

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low speed
broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no bank, no
village shop, etc.

It's dead quiet here, except for the wind.

I have 2 village stores, 2 florists, hairdresser, farmers' store,
bakers, Boots, Post Office, best Indian in the world, 3 pubs (and an
excellent 4th 1 mile away), 12 Mbit/sec ADSL shortly to be upgraded to
VDSL, trains station 90 mins fast-ish to London[1] and essentially
unlimited countryside.

This is a proper village, low chav count, almost no crime[2].


You've just got to pick your place...

[1] Well, on Monday now they have fixed the 4 landslips;

[2] Mostly small scale nickage, except for the murder a couple of years
back which was some thieving very non local pikey scum disturbed in the
act of nicking. They are all in prison now.

On Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:40:57 PM UTC, S Viemeister wrote:
On 3/1/2014 4:23 PM, Bert wrote:

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low speed
broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no bank, no
village shop, etc.

Why just accept it?

Poor internet is a killer for businesses. Acceptance is not the solution


NT

On 27/02/2014 19:55, Adrian wrote:
In message , Dave Baker
writes
So I'm happy it isn't just my house or its supply but surprised it
happens so often. Is this just a "living in the sticks" sort of thing
we have to get used to?

I live on the edge of somewhere.

I've been here for 13 years (before that I had 14 years in a nearby town
centre with no power cuts), and for the first few years, the power went
off with such regularity, I kept a record of it, but now it is a much
rarer event, perhaps every 18 months.

I was at one point moved to write to the distribution company and
complain about it. One of their staff rang me back and seemed to think
that because her power went off on a regular basis, all was well, but
things did improve after that.

There never seemed to be a consistent explanation (often there was no
explanation) as to why it went off, although on one occasion it was
supposedly down to a lightening strike on a substation (about 200yds
away as the crow flies), in that case I think we would have heard it,
and strangely the next day, it looked OK, and no signs of it having been
visited.

Where I used to live there were quite frequent short power outages -
ranging form brief drops to several hours at a time. It turned out that
this was partly down to a somewhat inadequate switching station. One day
it went up in smoke (along with several adjacent stables). Forcing it to
be rebuilt. After that the power was quite reliable. ;-)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

In message , S Viemeister
writes
On 3/1/2014 4:23 PM, Bert wrote:

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low speed
broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no bank, no
village shop, etc.

Why just accept it?


Because the 78% of you who moved there knew what to expect.
I hear city people getting bent out of shape if they have to wait more
than 10 or 15 minutes for a bus or train. I guess they should just
accept it, too.
Around here I do because that's what it was like when I moved here.
--
bert

In message ,
writes
On Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:40:57 PM UTC, S Viemeister wrote:
On 3/1/2014 4:23 PM, Bert wrote:

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low speed
broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no bank, no
village shop, etc.

Why just accept it?

Poor internet is a killer for businesses. Acceptance is not the solution


NT
Then you pay for it.
--
bert

On Monday, March 3, 2014 9:11:16 PM UTC, bert wrote:
In message ,
writes
On Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:40:57 PM UTC, S Viemeister wrote:
On 3/1/2014 4:23 PM, Bert wrote:

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low speed
broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no bank, no
village shop, etc.

Why just accept it?

Poor internet is a killer for businesses. Acceptance is not the solution

Then you pay for it.

Now theres a daft proposal.


NT

On 04/03/2014 10:41, wrote:
On Monday, March 3, 2014 9:11:16 PM UTC, bert wrote:
In message ,
writes
On Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:40:57 PM UTC, S Viemeister wrote:
On 3/1/2014 4:23 PM, Bert wrote:

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low speed
broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no bank, no
village shop, etc.

Why just accept it?

Your choices are either accept it or move. Same with no gas at all.

Poor internet is a killer for businesses. Acceptance is not the solution

Then you pay for it.

Now theres a daft proposal.

There is a tick box exercise in progress in various rural areas that
will enable the government to claim success. But they have set the
barrier for "fast" internet at 2Mbps which isn't even enough to stream a
single channel of HD TV in realtime so it is worse than useless.

The main effect is to give money to BT to do stuff in the profitable
suburban parts that they would have done anyway together with a bit of
meaningless tokenism in the rural hinterlands.

My own exchange it technically FTTC enabled but the only powered cabinet
is even further from me than the exchange.

You can get satellite broadband anywhere for a price or 3G data in many
places but with patchy coverage. Worth looking at the alternatives if
your broadband connection is very ropey. A neighbouring village on
aluminium phone cables barely gets 256kbps on ADSL and people would be
better off there using prehistoric bonded ISDN.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article , Martin Brown
wrote:
On 04/03/2014 10:41, wrote:
On Monday, March 3, 2014 9:11:16 PM UTC, bert wrote:
In message ,
writes
On Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:40:57 PM UTC, S Viemeister wrote:
On 3/1/2014 4:23 PM, Bert wrote:

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low
speed broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no
bank, no village shop, etc.

Why just accept it?

Your choices are either accept it or move. Same with no gas at all.

Poor internet is a killer for businesses. Acceptance is not the
solution

Then you pay for it.

Now theres a daft proposal.

There is a tick box exercise in progress in various rural areas that
will enable the government to claim success. But they have set the
barrier for "fast" internet at 2Mbps which isn't even enough to stream a
single channel of HD TV in realtime so it is worse than useless.

The "barrier" in Surrey is 16MBs. It is admitted taht aprox 1000 houses
will be out of range.

The main effect is to give money to BT to do stuff in the profitable
suburban parts that they would have done anyway together with a bit of
meaningless tokenism in the rural hinterlands.

Certainly not the case in Surrey.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 08:15:41 -0000, "Dave Baker"
wrote:

So I'm happy it isn't just my house or its supply but surprised it happens
so often. Is this just a "living in the sticks" sort of thing we have to get
used to?

Yes; great soft shandy-drinking Southern poofters often complain about
the power supply in the countryside. Since you're not one of them, I
take it you'll just accept it.

On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 14:52:00 +0000, Martin Brown wrote:

There is a tick box exercise in progress in various rural areas that
will enable the government to claim success. But they have set the
barrier for "fast" internet at 2Mbps ...

Not quite, 2 Mbps is the minimum "universal access" speed that is
supoosed to be available to *every* household. HTF they are going to
do that I don't know.

I don't think there is a "fast" definition. "Super fast" is 24 Mbps
or similar speed, finding a reliable definition isn't easy.

... which isn't even enough to stream a single channel of HD TV in
realtime so it is worse than useless.

True but it'll just about cope with heavly compressed SD. I've yet to
find a HD internet stream that runs at a decent rate = 10 Mbps but
then it wouldn't be any use to me as I only have 6 Mbps ADSL.

The main effect is to give money to BT to do stuff in the profitable
suburban parts that they would have done anyway together with a bit of
meaningless tokenism in the rural hinterlands.

Agreed, though the urban roll out is probably faster and denser than
if BT had been left to do it.

My own exchange it technically FTTC enabled but the only powered cabinet
is even further from me than the exchange.



You can get satellite broadband anywhere for a price ...

Does 20 down, 6 MBps up, for £24/month fall foul of "for a price"?
The £150 install min 12 months and only 10 GB/month aren't very
attractive though.

A neighbouring village on aluminium phone cables barely gets 256kbps on
ADSL and people would be better off there using prehistoric bonded ISDN.

Aye, I've got about 6 Mbps but another mile down the road into the
village and away from the exchange most people only get around 500
kbps. There are farms another 3 miles or so beyond the village. How
are they going to get the "universal access" 2 Mbps?

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Tuesday, March 4, 2014 2:52:00 PM UTC, Martin Brown wrote:
On 04/03/2014 10:41, wrote:
On Monday, March 3, 2014 9:11:16 PM UTC, bert wrote:
In message ,
writes
On Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:40:57 PM UTC, S Viemeister wrote:
On 3/1/2014 4:23 PM, Bert wrote:

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low speed
broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no bank, no
village shop, etc.

Why just accept it?

Your choices are either accept it or move. Same with no gas at all.

No, those are not my choices.


I do wonder why bt et al dont put a computer box in relevant cabinets that runs people's internet down all the available copper between cabinet and exchange. Would that not be a useful intermediate step that would quickly pay its way? (My info on how such things are currently run is insufficient.)


NT

wrote:

I do wonder why bt et al dont put a computer box in relevant cabinets
that runs people's internet down all the available copper between
cabinet and exchange. Would that not be a useful intermediate step
that would quickly pay its way?

Depends, if most lines are already ADSL enabled, the total bonded copper
capacity to the cabinet wouldn't be much higher than at present (unlike
running fibre to the cabinet) so contention between all customers and
the cabinet could be an issue, probably a bit late in the day to be
developing that sort of technology.

There's a whole class of customers who are over 4-5km from the exchange
and struggle to get 2Mbps from ADSL, but who are closer than 2-3km to
the cabinet who might get 8-10Mbps if the cabinet was VDSL enabled.
Since these people wouldn't get the "headline" 80Mbps rates BT seems
uninterested, they prefer to provide VDSL speeds faster than 24Mbps to
people who *already* get 8 to 24Mbps on ADSL.

On 06/03/2014 02:35, wrote:
On Tuesday, March 4, 2014 2:52:00 PM UTC, Martin Brown wrote:
On 04/03/2014 10:41, wrote:
On Monday, March 3, 2014 9:11:16 PM UTC, bert wrote:
In message ,
writes
On Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:40:57 PM UTC, S Viemeister wrote:
On 3/1/2014 4:23 PM, Bert wrote:

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low speed
broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no bank, no
village shop, etc.

Why just accept it?

Your choices are either accept it or move. Same with no gas at all.

No, those are not my choices.

Your only other alternative is satellite broadband or one of the local
microwave link based DIY/entrepreneur groups that BT is currently in the
process of bankrupting by targeting their most profitable markets.

I have in mind the likes of North Yorkshire initiatives like:

http://www.superfastnorthyorkshire.com/wireless-schemes

I have heard good things about Clannet

http://www.clannet.co.uk/

I do wonder why bt et al dont put a computer box in relevant cabinets that runs people's internet down all the available copper between cabinet and exchange. Would that not be a useful intermediate step that would quickly pay its way? (My info on how such things are currently run is insufficient.)

There is already a massive shortage of real copper circuits back to the
exchange! That is the key problem for rural broadband. They have to DACS
two grannies for every new ADSL circuit they enable round here and they
are quite simply running out of grannies and working copper.

It doesn't help now that silver surfers are on the march so that the
DACS'd grannies now want their internet connections as well!

Round here they tend to break one existing circuit for every two they
install so we have a semi-permanent encampment of BT Openreach vans. It
got so bad last year that they had to truck in Lancastrians to help out
after several customers were left without phones for a month or more.
(incidentally turns out they pay some puny compensation for that)

The fibre line of FTTC gets them a massively parallel high bandwidth
connection back to the exchange from the cabinet with enough virtual
circuit bandwidth equivalent to give everyone a decent connection.

The snag is that in the countryside most of us live too far from the
FTTC cabinet to get any noticeable advantage!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

No, those are not my choices.

Your only other alternative is satellite broadband or one of the local
microwave link based DIY/entrepreneur groups that BT is currently in the
process of bankrupting by targeting their most profitable markets.

I have in mind the likes of North Yorkshire initiatives like:

http://www.superfastnorthyorkshire.com/wireless-schemes

Yes thats what happened years ago around these parts, several village
systems used 2.4 Ghz radio with rather large aerials when good ole BT
enabled up the local exchange these systems died out;(..


I have heard good things about Clannet

http://www.clannet.co.uk/

I do wonder why bt et al dont put a computer box in relevant cabinets that
runs people's internet down all the available copper between cabinet and
exchange. Would that not be a useful intermediate step that would quickly pay
its way? (My info on how such things are currently run is insufficient.)

There is already a massive shortage of real copper circuits back to the
exchange! That is the key problem for rural broadband. They have to DACS
two grannies for every new ADSL circuit they enable round here and they
are quite simply running out of grannies and working copper.

Don't they make this 'ere copper cable anymore, or dare they not risk
putting it in should those pesky Pikey's pinch it?...


It doesn't help now that silver surfers are on the march so that the
DACS'd grannies now want their internet connections as well!

Round here they tend to break one existing circuit for every two they
install so we have a semi-permanent encampment of BT Openreach vans. It
got so bad last year that they had to truck in Lancastrians to help out
after several customers were left without phones for a month or more.
(incidentally turns out they pay some puny compensation for that)

The fibre line of FTTC gets them a massively parallel high bandwidth
connection back to the exchange from the cabinet with enough virtual
circuit bandwidth equivalent to give everyone a decent connection.

The snag is that in the countryside most of us live too far from the
FTTC cabinet to get any noticeable advantage!


Sad that;(..

Still that nice Yorkshire scenery must more than compensate;?...
--
Tony Sayer

On 04/03/2014 14:52, Martin Brown wrote:
On 04/03/2014 10:41, wrote:
On Monday, March 3, 2014 9:11:16 PM UTC, bert wrote:
In message ,
writes
On Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:40:57 PM UTC, S Viemeister wrote:
On 3/1/2014 4:23 PM, Bert wrote:

Fine, just accept the price you have to pay - power outages, low
speed
broadband, poor quality road, poor or no bus services, no bank, no
village shop, etc.

Why just accept it?

Your choices are either accept it or move. Same with no gas at all.

actually the situation is probably easier than with gas... at least
there are some DIY options for faster access such as sticking in your
own outside wifi backhaul connection to somewhere with faster access.




--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 06/03/2014 08:31, Huge wrote:
On 2014-03-06, Andy Burns wrote:

There's a whole class of customers who are over 4-5km from the exchange
and struggle to get 2Mbps from ADSL, but who are closer than 2-3km to
the cabinet who might get 8-10Mbps if the cabinet was VDSL enabled.

[FX: Waves]

And here... In fact I don't recall even seeing a local cabinet - I think
our lines are hardwired back to the exchange after doing a lap of the
village.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Rumm wrote:

I don't recall even seeing a local cabinet - I think our lines are
hardwired back to the exchange after doing a lap of the village.

BT's checker will tell you which cabinet you're on, or whether you're an
EO (exchange only) line - in which case you're even less likely to get VDSL.