Life without broadband….

This week has seen an interesting experience at the Dare household – no broadband for 3 days. This was an enforced experience, the connection had been getting somewhat ‘flaky’ over a period of a few days and then it stopped working all together. A quick call to Virgin Media confirmed that it was terminal and a visit from an engineer was required – but that the earliest visit was Thursday (and this was Monday evening).

I will admit that the initial thought of no Internet access (except via my iPhone) caused me to have a hot sweat. But, having gone through two and a half days ‘cold turkey’ it wasn’t all bad!

Yes, we couldn’t really do our weekly shop with Ocado or Able and Cole (I say we – my wife does it), but it did cause a teenager to appear from YouTube for a couple of days and actually talk to us! And it highlighted just how good a smartphone can be to run your life on!

Service was returned before lunchtime on Thursday, so we are back to normal. It was a loose connection in the cabinet apparently – this was the first time our Internet had gone down in 10 years, so a pat on the back for Virgin (for once).

 

4G Nottingham?

Not a good look - but you get the idea.....

We could become one of the first UK cities to get  super-fast 4G mobile broadband if Nottingham City Councils bid  for a share of the Government’s £100 million Urban Broadband Fund – which aims to bring world-leading super-fast broadband and wi-fi to ten of the UK’s cities – is successful.

4G – or fourth generation – is a more advanced version of 3G, the wireless internet that mobiles, laptops and tablet devices use. It is faster and means people will be able to access high-quality video and audio on the move – something that is becoming more and more of our everyday lives.

Only cities with more than 150,000 homes were allowed to apply for a share of the fund and from the shortlist Nottingham faces competition from Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester and Sheffield.

The UK’s four capitals – Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London – are guaranteed to be awarded funding as part of the scheme.

We have to wait until Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget speech later this month to see if the bid has been approved, but there is some additional potential for success – the high-speed data cabling could be laid along tram tracks while the works for line two of the tram are built over the next two years – saving money on the infrastructure costs.

How amazing would it be for Nottingham to be one of the country’s first 4G cities? Not only would existing businesses benefit from increased efficiency and improved connectivity, the city would also be in a much stronger position to respond to the rapidly emerging and anticipated future requirement of businesses.

Time to keep your fingers crossed and hope that the A453 announcement last year wasn’t a ‘flash in the pan’ for Nottingham.

 

How much!

Not a good attitude!

   

We are always being told that our ‘beloved’ BT are not quite the company that their shiny advertising campaign would have us believe. Tales of nightmare waits for connections and the like are common.      

If I am honest I have not suffered personally from the ‘BT effect’ – although our recent transfer back to them at work was not perhaps as smooth as it might have been (although our connection was not compromised at any point).      

I am with Virgin Media at home, and have a constant 8-10MB connection (based on 10MB) so am very happy, particularly in light of the recent evidence that BT’s speeds are nearly always way below their advertised speed!      

As the largest provider of telecoms in the UK – by a long way – one could perhaps expect BT to be at the forefront in rolling out fast internet access to the rural areas of the UK as required by both our current Government and the previous one. I was therefore surprised to read the following story in the papers this weekend;      

“Erbistock villagers quoted £550,000 for broadband link”      

It transpires that the 80 household village of Erbistock near Wrexham wanted to move into the broadband era – a reasonable request! They spoke to BT the telecoms provider in their village and were quoted £550,000 for the link to be installed! (Apparently the exchange was too far away).      

Luckily they had the presence of mind (after picking themselves up off the floor) to contact another provider, Rutland Telecom, who had helped out another village with similar problems. Their quote –  £50,000, and they hope to have them online by October!      

What was even better is that they discovered that the Welsh Assembly Government’s broadband support scheme provides up to £1,000 per household or business premises to help with the set-up and installation costs of a broadband connection. To qualify for the scheme householders or businesses must register as a “notspot” -  that is an area with no broadband connection, usually as the result of the distance from the local telephone exchange.      

It is hoped that enough households will come  on board so that the grant will almost cover the £50,000 cost!      

BT say they are looking into the matter!      

This is a classic example of a big  supplier believing they have the consumer over a barrel. Time for more ‘notspots’ to check if what BT tells them is true!    

UPDATE – 27th September 2010    

It appears that BT have reduced the cost of the proposed connection – to £100! Apparently they can move the village to a much closer exchange (the only downside being the villagers would lose their current phone numbers).    

BT say the change of heart has nothing to do with trying to keep another operator out of the village (we all believe that!).    

The villagers are going to stay with their original plan (they will get a far quicker connection than BT can offer).   

Must try harder BT!

 

Always a country boy?

I have always considered myself to be somewhat of a ‘country boy’. I spent my first eight years in Stow on the Wold in the Cotswolds and my later childhood in Malmesbury in Wiltshire.

Malmesbury is famous for being England’s oldest Borough, having an Abbey which had the tallest spire in England (before it collapsed), a flying monk (who broke both legs) and finally for being the Capital of England under King Athelstan (honestly!). Despite this, both were small towns with little going on and my later youth was somewhat parochial in nature!

The high spots of Malmesbury in my youth as I recall were the open air swimming pool and the numerous pubs (at least 8 if I remember correctly for a population of 1500!). When I moved to Nottingham as a student I was very happy that it was a city (with even more pubs), but with a very friendly feel – still the case and one of Nottinghams greatest attributes.

I now love going back to Malmesbury (my mother still lives there), the pace of life is so much slower and the countryside is beautiful, I find I relax so quickly! It is also dark at night as there is no ‘city glow’! It has changed though, the population has more than tripled and it is even home to a well known music festival (Womad)! All 3 schools in the town I went to have also been demolished and redeveloped since I left, perhaps this should tell me something!

The one thing that sometimes makes me miss my city life when I am here is a lack of Internet access. My mother does not have broadband (she is 85 so it’s not likely!) and the town has a poor signal on O2 (ie. No 3G). Consequently any access via my iPhone is SLOW! I am blogging this from my iPhone but it will take minutes for this blog to upload (assuming it doesn’t crash).

Does this mean I am turning into a geeky towny? Probably not, the pleasures of the countryside are too deeply etched into my soul, but please let’s improve national data coverage!