Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Faster broadband

Register for faster broadband

BT are asking homeowners and businesses to register their interest in having fibre optic broadband in the area. They need at least 1000 votes to be considered. Register now on http://www.racetoinfinity.bt.com/



Posted by Virtual Swanage to swanageview at 11:15 AM

21 comments:

CentreHouse said...

Get voting people

Dorset Forum Webmaster said...

Voted

Anonymous said...

They did exactly the same thing when ADSL was being rolled out. Whether it made any difference I doubt. Its a way of getting email addresses of potential customers for the new service and doing their market research for nothing.

Anonymous said...

re 7:35 PM

Why is there always someone who wants to hold the area back !

Anonymous said...

I don't but I know a piece of smart marketing when I see one. You are misrepresenting what I said. Can't you remember those league tables of the number of people interested in broadband in each town on the BT web site a few years ago? By all means register with them if you think it will make a difference. As I recall, at best, places with a high rate of expressed interest got their exchanges enabled a few weeks sooner.

This is about being able to stream films and TV in real time at a decent resolution rather than it offering a facility for businesses as the former is a far larger potential market. If you use Iplayer on a decent size tv you will know the quality issues with the existing system.

As we have established the big concern of businesses is with reliability rather than speed. We have not had any local businesses that I know of complaining that their activities are hampered by a nominal 8 meg download speed. If I am wrong I would be interested to hear which businesses they are.

Apexweb said...

Re 10:20 AM

As web designers and photographers we often have to upload large files and it can take hours to upload photos or new websites. Having fibre dosnt just give a faster download, the upload speeds are also a lot faster. We know several other photogaphers in town and we all have the same problems when trying to upload photos for printing or for galleries.

Anonymous said...

surely you just post a CDROM?

Anonymous said...

'surely you just post a CDROM?'

That is what we did back in 1998..........

Anonymous said...

re 11:35 AM
How is posting a cdrom going to upload files to a web server?

Anonymous said...

Point taken. What upload speeds are going to be offered? It is very much the Cinderella end of the various broadband products. I send large files from time to time and carrier pigeon would probably be faster.

CentreHouse said...

I run a website for a local charity and upload speeds with reliablity can be very problamatic.
i am with apex on this issue.

Apexweb said...

re 2:26 PM
On BT's site it says 10mb upload and 40mb download. At the momemt we are lucky to get 250kb upload speeds

Anonymous said...

I am glad those on board were recovered safely. Well done Swanage lifeboat.

This is why boaters carry insurance.

Zoe Kleinman said...

Hi, I'm working on a piece about broadband problems in Dorset for the BBC. Just had a long chat with BT - they say any community in which 75% of the population votes in the competition will get looked at - but there's also another company which thinks it has solved the problem with a wireless network and claims to be able to match upload/download speeds (for a fee...) coming to Swanage soon. More to follow.

Reece said...

I'm a film-maker based in Swanage and uploading a 3min film takes around 11 hours. Unworkable. Sending discs costs around £5 a time registered delivery, so it's not exactly ideal.

I spoke to BT and they offered to increase the upload speed, but decrease the download - so you suffer either way to be honest. Great offer from talk talk came in, but it would cost me £206 to leave BT - very annoying.

We desperately need a change - business will disappear from Swanage and the local area, whats the point if you can't trade online? Fibre or equivalent is vital to keep Swanage alive and in this century - without it'll be a summer town with cafes and candle shops and no other trade.

Footie said...

Its my understanding that sometime after 2012 we will have an entirley new system of broadband, called 4G. This will be the next evolution from 3G - which currently runs data networks on mobile phone. This will allow data to be transmitted through radio signals, and we will have wireless routers with sim cards in them to access them.

This system will be faster than than the esisting copper wire system we currently have (not sure exactly what the data rates are), but still not as fast as fibre optic. So if BT infinity doesn't come to Swanafe (and only 166 signatures for Swanage at the moment), maybe we could pull our own fibre optic cable down the railway line?

The Postman said...

see the Team Dorset survey on

http://www.dorsetforyou.com/broadband

Footie said...

well, well, another fine example of a "public consultation" of which everyone (the aforementioned public) are blissfully unaware!

I'm self employed. I don't remeber being consulted!

The Postman said...

.. I see the 'Race to Infinity\ website concludes with this: Switch to BT Total Broadband today and we'll contact you for an a upgrade when BT Infinity arrives in your area.

So is it just a marketing exercise to get more BT customers?

Reece said...

the fact remains that, like it or lump it, BT have the cash to install fibre optic. Talk Talk won't do it and nor will any other provider in the area.

I'm a BT customer - and the service currently is pretty lousy as we've all been saying. I loathe the idea of BT continuing to control the future of communications here, but I also don't see the point in cutting our nose off to spite our face.

I don't see the council paying for the service so who exactly will install faster broadband?

We need this service - so lets get BT to install and hopefully other providers will move in to use the service, and offer a better experience for us all to take advantage of. If we don't register support now, then we won't have anything.

Anonymous said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/dorset/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9107000/9107191.stm