Much is being blogged about here about the demise of small industry in Swanage. I had an idea some time ago that may just help Swanage in lots of different ways: what about, as part of the re-signalling at Wareham, putting in a fibre optic cable down the railway line? This could serve Swanage and Corfe, and maybe other places too, with ultra High Speed broadband. This would allow all sorts of hi-tech businesses to locate here - even if people are only working out of a room at home.
Would there be demand for it?
Posted by Anonymous to swanageview at 1:45 PM
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Great idea but the synics will ask; 'who pays'?
Irecently changed from Virgin to Talktalk and my speed has gone, period. Talktalk say its the local line/exchange.
So what if everyone agreed to change to the server who financed the package, say BT ?
RobO
why do we need ultra High Speed broadband?
Public transport that could get you to London quicker than driving would be better!
Why would anyone want to go to London to work from Swanage? Wouldnt it be better to keep employment in this area rather than turning the town into a huge retirement home or comuting base with no local jobs left ?
5.18
Why not go and live in London? Save you loads of bother... Then we can communicate with you from here!
Hi speed broadband = high speed communications. Rapid file transfer to anywhere in the world, the internet is the future (or some aspect of the internet). Look how the internet expanded in the last 5 years. Look at how your life has changed since dial-up. The next big thing will be superfast broadband which will be used by everyone. Of course, if you live in Swanage it won't matter.
People have been debating job creation in Swanage, why not this? Its called lateral thinking...
It isn't lateral thinking. The internet is the only future for Swanage. Yes, there will always be the bucket and spade holiday trade, and the retired gentlefolk who chose to live here. But these will not pay the bills if we want to maintain Swanage for young families and those in viable employment.
I will go so far as to say the Internet is the GIFT offered to Swanage. A gift that fools will spurn.
I run a company that deals with wholesale internet travel sales, especially the cruise industry. I have over 2000 agents worldwide who work through my company via the internet. Our turnover is over $400 millon a year.
I have a holiday home in Swanage. I would like to bring the corporate headquarters of this company to Swanage. I would like to bring 20-30 employees here to operate the home office. I woudl like a suite of office available to rent. My UK employess are all eager to move here from a less than salubrious part of west London.
The problem? We have discovered that Swanage has an unreliable internet service. No internet-reliant company can work here, except the small ones who can afford outages.
Swanage - it is up to you. You have a enviable setting, schools and lifestyle that many with money and businesses would die to move to. And you sit there, arguing about the Pier Head site. Fine. Weymouth is proving to be more attractive to us.
Over to you.
Talk to Richard Wilson at PDC if you have not already.
It sounds as though a business of the size you describe might be better off with a leased line rather than ADSL This is a lot more expensive but is fast both ways unlike ADSl. Whether cable internet is any more reliable that adsl is an open question. We had another 15 minute outage yesterday though courtesy of BT.
If an individual bought some fibre optic cable it would cost about 1.50 a meter, 16000 meters Wareham to Swanage,about £25.000 If BT were to buy it, it would cost less than half of that. I realize that there is more than cable involved but the buildings are here. So for someone like BT it
is not a great deal of money.
Why can't we get the internet delivered through our electricity cables?
Didn't that fail because anyone wanting to eavesdrop only had to park with his receiving kit next to the nearest lamp-post and he could read your email? I remember it being proposed some years ago.
Good grief, you folk have some wild ideas about the internet!
You cannot just unreel a length of fibre optic cable along the rail line.
There is a far far greater chance emails and internet usage can be intercepted over wifi. Make sure your data is encrypted whenever possible.
Electricity lines have been used for internet transmission, but not the national grid. It is used where the power is stepped down.
I have heard of remote areas being served by a satellite dish which then connects to the local service, but satellites are not very fast.
I have also heard that existing pipes (clean water, grey water and sewer) have been used as conduits for cable and fibre-optic, removing the need to excavate new lines.
Perhaps what Swanage needs is a competitor to shake up BT's apparent indifference to getting the service right. 3 (Three) dongles seem to work well, especially up the hill on the south side of town.
A firm called Fibrecity is currently putting fibre cable in in Bournemouth. Their negotiations with the water company foundered and they are digging up the streets to do it. Echo readers will be familiar with this and the issues involved
Actually we will probably get fibre next year. And to whoever mentioned it, obviously you can't just lay a cable without adequate shielding, especially fibre.
But thanks for the tip .
"Actually we will probably get fibre next year".
Dream on.
Lets not believe that super broadband will bring lots of company headquarters to Swanage. There are other reasons why Swanage is not a preferred location for company HQs, for example - remote location, lack of facilities, poor transport links. Super broadband would be great for home workers but it wont make that much difference to the town on its own.
I was the original postee (?)) on this topic. I was talking to a pal yesterday who told me that when the new 4G mobile phone system comes in in 2013 then that will support up to 200 meg broadband. The theory (I believe) is that we will use new broadband routers which have a mobile sim card in it and route everything on Wi-fi from, effectively, a 4G hub.
That will be great if its the case... Does anyone know any more on this?
Another outage, lasting an hour or two this afternoon. Who else had it? The line remained connected but pages would not load and pings were erratic.
Yes, at least two separate houses in Ulwell didn't have Broadband working for a few hours on Saturday 4 September 2010.
Theres a much bigger problem out there. Reading some of these comments you might think Swanage is the only place with broadband problems. In fact they are widespread, including in some larger towns. We have some interesting spin about broadband but the experience is quite different
Interesting. It does not help that most people are brainwashed into thinking that any problem with their computer and the internet is caused by virii/evil spirits rather than BT.
We live in Swanage and are used to and frustrated by the erratic internet traffic. Nice to know we're not alone
BUT - I'm writing this on a netbook on a wireless connection whilst on holiday in Revelstoke, Canada and everything works great ! Revelstoke is surrounded by mountains and pretty remote - Vancouver is over 550 kms away to the west, Calgary over 400kms away to the east. London is about 200kms from Swanage. The Canadian Pacific railway runs through the town, and the fibre optic cable HAS been laid alongside the track !
The City council have set up a wireless 'mesh' so all employees on business can connect by wireless and they are saving a fortune on their phone bill by using internet calls.
Where there's a will, there's a way and we (like many other places) need to be upgraded !!!!!
The internet isn't just a 'nice to have' these days.
So - what do we do about it ? Is it the Town, District or County Council or Mr Drax we should be lobbying ? Or good old BT ?
The Council would be the best place to start for funding I (guess).
It all work's in Canada because they don't appear to be very keen on
bodging things,
unlike here in the UK
Swanage has absolutely no vision for bringing new jobs, businesses or industries into town. Purbeck District Council offers only the most basic of help and little of it is practical. Dorset County Council seems to be in a bit or turmoil at the moment over what it can do, let alone what others can do.
Swanage needs to set aside land for the development of service based offices linked up to high speed internet. Perhaps we need that more than a new health centre, or even some housing.
Well, if and this is a big "if" BT do lay down fibre to Weymouth/Portland in time for the sailing 2012, maybe you will get fibre, but until that happens (or if it ever does!) I think the possibility of swanage getting fibre next year is very unlikely, sorry to say.
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