"BT, you lot do my head right in !"
OK, it's not Pulitzer material but for most who live in a rural location I'm pretty sure this is a shared pain normally including expletives. By virtue of the fact we live maybe as little as 1 to 2 miles out of a town we are the vastly poorer broadband relations to the local small towns not to mention the medium sized and large towns and don't get me started on cities.
Whilst major cities enjoy their 7th or 8th major upgrade with 200Mb bandwidth touted, us rural beings have seen nothing by way of upgrade in 9-years. In fact during that time bandwidth has most likely dropped as the odd new building is converted from agricultural and the small POP is now shared with a new connection. What are my stats:
Good Day : 2.5Mb down, 0.49Mb up
Normal Day : 2Mb down, 0.45 up
Bad Day : 1.5Mb down, 0.16Mb up
Not good is it ?
In fact try being a UK&I company CTO whose life is dedicated to Digital on that kind on bandwidth. Members of my team running on 100Mb+ constantly mock my pathetic bandwidth, complain of my often darlec voice and dare me to start a video connection to truly destroy what quality there is on the line......OK there isn't any quality they just want to see me flat line my connection.
I'm schooling 3 children in the Digital world and one wife, the children being the easier adopters naturally :) I teach them educational games, I teach them games to extend their minds and of course they learnt to use Netflix at about 3 years old ! Kids being kids can't agree to share or watch the same programme so they want to all access in parallel......
Child : Dad, my program keeps stopping then starting and its really annoying
Dad : I'm trying to have a voice conference, how about you turn your tablet off so one of us can do something on this crappy bandwidth !
Child : Mum, Daddy's being mean to us
Dad : If we're assigning blame perhaps I could offer up BT as the common enemy ?
I'm currently doing the rounds internally and externally to Worldline UK&I giving a presentation about "Being Digital" and explaining to the audience how Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants see the world. In addition I add an amusing play on Marc Prensky's take of the world with Digital Ignorants that pretend the Digital World isn't happening. Pretty sure you aren't new to this but 1 sentence overviews in case this is new for you:
Digital Native - born into the Digital era surrounded and supported by technology creating a way of living that is normal and relies heavily upon technology. Digital is the norm
Digital Immigrant born before the Digital era (or born in the Digital era but was not exposed to it) but is adapting to it and moving away from lesser capable technology and paper. Isn't naturally inclined to Digital but accepts and adopts it to varying degrees.
Digital Ignorant - still pretends the Digital world hasn't occurred, actively rejects the need for the Digital world and keeps the makers of pencils and paper in business. Is probably not pre-disposed to using technology of any sort. Has both fingers stuffed in their ears and can be found singing to themselves ; "La la la what digital world"
I had the idea to call BT's technical support one day to complain about the incredibly crappy upload bandwidth when I was particularly darlecy (not sure if that's a word but it's my blog so my rules). I think I had 0.16Mb upload, and my outbound voice was inaudible and I had to switch to a mobile perched delicately in the window in an attempt to connect to the mobile network (now there's another post that needs writing). My call with BT went something like this:
Me : Hi, I'm having a real problem with my bandwidth today!
BT agent in India somewhere : Was it working OK yesterday?
Me : Define OK?
BT : Did you have sufficient bandwidth?
Me : Well not really, hard to have sufficient bandwidth on the piece of string excuse you have for a phone line!
BT : pardon Sir?
Me : Never mind, English humour. Yesterday it was running at it's normal speed where I only have to repeat myself twice to be understood
BT : Could you say that again please Sir?
Me : You being funny ?
BT : I don't understand ?
Me : Sorry, thought you were taking the P!ss. OK, listen yesterday it was working as well as can be expected when you hit the heady heights of 0.49Mb upload bandwidth.. Today I've tested the connection @ 0.16Mb, this is barely enough to send a "Hello world" message from java and that's pure text let alone voice and screen sharing.
BT : What have you changed?
Me : Nothing
BT : Are you running wireless or wired?
Me : Wireless like I always do when it always runs at 0.49 top end!
BT : I suggest you run wired, it will improve things.
Me : So you're not interested in the fact this is a test over an established baseline with the same kit on the same network using the same IP using the same, well everything as normal?
BT : It says in my script I have to ask this irrelevant of the fact its a dumb question 99% of the time.
Me : OK, I've plugged in the LAN cable and I've not achieved 0.17Mb. Seems you were right but before you go claiming 6% increase on your advice can I remind you that the normal bandwidth is 0.49Mb upstream....wired or wireless.
BT : I'm sorry, we don't guarantee upload bandwidth, only download.
Me : Shall we talk download then ? This could get fun :)
BT : I see from your line that you have unlimited broadband and that you can achieve 4Mb
Me : Haha, I knew BT had a sense of humour but that was hilarious
BT : Sorry ?
Me : Don't be sorry, I don't think you installed the cable did you!
Me : Lets short cut this before I die of laughter. When can I get fibre broadband please?
BT : It's already installed in the cabinet Sir.
Me : I've checked my cabinet and it's full of alcohol, are we talking about a different cabinet? I've got a bunch of fibre cables in my garage but I don't think that's going to help things.
BT : I'm confused Sir?
Me : So am I, I've got less than 2Mb downstream and you're claiming fibre is deployed to the cabinet, When can I get it to my house
BT : Can you give me your phone number?
Me : We've only just met, I mean the chat is going well but I'm not sure I'm ready to take this to the next level just yet
BT : Don't worry Sir I've found it on your account.
Me : OK, you choose the restaurant I'll pick up the cheque
BT : Pardon Sir ?
Me : Ignore me, this is the most fun I've had in weeks on my broadband line. You were going to tell me when I could get fibre
BT : There are no plans to roll fibre out to you location
Me : I've changed my mind, I don't think this is going to work out. We're just not right for each other.
BT : Sir?
Me : Thanks, speak to you soon. Bye.
OK it may not of gone exactly like that but you get the drift.
BT have rolled fibre out to the cabinet in local Wem, The cabinet is probably 2 miles from my house as the crow flies (or any other annoyingly noisy bird) and 3 miles via the roads. The fibre though wasn't rolled out to Wem houses for over a year despite everyone connected to the exchange getting a letter stating that we've installed fibre. BT had to meet a KPI and that was to roll out fibre to the exchanges, they did that and sat on it. Only a year later are fibre cables going in.....but not past the boundary of the town. Rural locations have been told to raise a petition to get the broadband as the KPI from the government isn't to roll this out to houses. I guess it's no shock that BT claim its not economically viable to roll it out to the rural areas. they are OK though to make a mint in the cities and large towns. Anyone can manipulate a business case to show its not viable but surely they should be on the hook overall not just area by area.
So in my mind BT in rural areas are Digital Ignorants, they have their fingers firmly stuffed in their ears denying a need and keeping the rural areas on bandwidth that is just unable to support normal families. We can't do video calls to families/friends, I can't video call back to our house and see my children when I'm away.. All because BT claim its not economically viable to roll it out. Interesting when I do video calls to India and they have more than 5Mb to their houses ! I was in Pune in May and the hotel which is in Hinjewadi which is not built up really had over 10Mb up and down per room. Surely if it can be done in rural Pune ir can be done in rural England ?
Anyway, enough BT bashing. I actually get their point even if I see it as a bend of the overall truth to satisfy their lust for profit at the expense of real people!
So I thought, I'll just get a 4G router and put a mast up and I won't need BT anymore. I called EE who are my mobile provider and talked through what I wanted. After being transferred through 3 or 4 different sections due to my confusing request for rural cellular network based broadband I arrived at a man who could help. He told me I can do a router that takes a SIM, it's capped at 50GB per month. We also don't do masts on our routers, you just put the SIM card in and it picks up the cellular network at 4G or 3G.
Not when it's in a rural building that has restrictions on insulation that pretty much create a Faraday cage it doesn't (refer to note above about placing phone in the window to get signal). I fail to see why EE don't offer a master that would connect to the router so I can actually pick up 3G/4G, surely it's in their interest to get the strongest connection possible, especially as they have introduced an arbitrary monthly ceiling of 50GB and over that they will charge you horrendous overage.
Turns out you can get a router with a mast (just not from a cellular data provider) and just take a data card from the cellualr network but the router/mast has to be bought independently. I called EE back and said can I get a data only card and not bother with your equipment ? You can but only @ 32GB per month, no reason for that other than to get right on my nerves.OK, tat probably wasn't their marketting approach but it's how it makes you feel !
So to recap:
- Existing rural broadband is shocking
- BT won't roll out fibre to rural broadband as they claim its not economical for them as a company
- The most viable alternative is 3G/4G broadband for rural people wanting better connections, Surely this is a marketing angle for the data providers ?
- Many rural buildings are on the edge of 3G/4G or have high regulations on energy efficiency meaning mobile signals inside are hard to get so the standard router they offer is pointless
- Cellular data providers don't offer a mast option and what they offer is capped at 50GB per month
- You can use a cellular data providers card in an independent router with an outside mast but its capped at 32Gb per month
- With a family of 3 children and 2 adults who love Netflix, Amazon and work from home I expect to consume between 100GB and 150GB per month
People wonder why rural dwellers get so frustrated with broadband. Well now you know.
As a good CTO though I have a Plan B. I've bought an industrial role of silver foil and I'm working my way through the fields to the town of Wem wrapping the horns of cows with foil tuning the cows into super conductors. All I have to do now is point a laser LAN at the first cow and bounce the signal off the rest to my place.What could possibly go wrong I ask you ?
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