No BT Fibre because...

[Ray_Von]

Here is a copy of the email I have just received from Clive Betts as to why BT are not going to enable Attercliffe exchange.

Quote:Dear Mr xxxxxxxx

Thank you for your email.

I do understand your concerns and I have recently met with BT to discuss this matter.

Further to our previous correspondence on this issue, BT at the recent meeting were a lot more forthcoming with their reasons as to why the Attercliffe exchange has not been upgraded so far. However their current position is that they still do not have any imminent plans to fibre enable the Attercliffe exchange.

In the meeting they outlined that the reason as to why the Attercliffe exchange has not been upgraded is commercial and they feel that there is not enough demand in the areas covered by the exchange to upgrade it without Government assistance. I did challenge BT on this as there is a large business community as well as a large residential population, with businesses in particular demanding fibre but they insisted they would not make the investment without Government funding. They also outlined that because the South Yorkshire Councils, opted to go for the European Commission funded fibre broadband initiative (which became Digital Region) opposed to opting to work with BT that in turn meant that BT took their investment to other regions and would always thereon be prioritising the area’s which had opted to partner with BT.
However, BT are currently in negotiations with the Government in regards to obtaining investment as the Government has a fund called the Superfast extension programme that is for assisting in these matters but they outlined that if funding was secured the exchange would still not be enabled until late 2015 or even 2016. The Government’s deadline for the completion of the scheme is 2017.

With regards to Digital Region, as I understand it the South Yorkshire Councils are currently in the middle of a process for selling the infrastructure to an unnamed bidder, but that process will not be completed in time for the scheduled closure date of the existing Digital Region network. BT at the meeting also confirmed to me that they have no plans to bid for the Digital Region network at this stage as it uses different technical standards to their own network.

I also understand that the mobile phone networks have plans to offer 4G LTE products for use in the home which can offer download speeds of 50 Mbs but so far they have not given any concrete launch timetable or approximate costs. The mobile phone/tablet version of this product is already available in Sheffield but the costs are expensive when compared with landline based unlimited broadband products.

I have written to Maria Miller to ask that South Yorkshire be given priority funding and I will of course forward on a copy of the response as soon as it is received.

I do understand this response is not going to bring a speedy resolution to this problem but please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions on this or any other issue.

Regards

Clive Betts MP

What about exchanges other than Attercliffe and Sheffield that are on the DR programme,didn't stop BT enabling those exchanges...

And as for being no demand...23000 residential properties and 3000 businesses who are connected to Attercliffe.

[fibretyke]

Hard to see why the investment would be a bad one for them, relative to other DR-enabled areas that they HAVE invested in. Also seems mornjy to accuse the councils of some kind of snub - they were given money to build an independent network. AFAIK, using that money to sponsor BT's development in the area was never even an option!

I do feel sorry for those of you that face the big drop back to barely-adequate ADSL connections. My ADSL used to make 0.5-1Mbps (not even enough for a YouTube clip) and I wouldn't fancy the prospect of going back to that at all!

[gribz_uk]

Surprisingly, that's a great response from an MP! Meg Munn palmed off my request to her office to an assistant, who no one wanted to give a response to.

To sum up BT's response; "Yah boo sucks, you didn't want the BT monopoly, now you gotta suck it down and beg! hahaha"

Etc.

[mirdragon]

As far as I know it's different, all BT's equipment uses DLM and have battery backups - which the DRL network does not have - so BT would have to upgrade all these otherwise users will have similar issues to what is experienced on the network now.

As initially said by all they should have got the help from BT to build the network, which more than likely have now been profitable....

[clifft]

A lot of this will be down to expected take-up. They will have a good understanding of what percentage of customers on an exchange currently have broadband and what their spending power is and what the likelihood of take up fibre is going to be. I assume they think that these exchanges aren't going to generate enough fibre connections. Central Sheffield in particular has lots of new student accommodation and flats which are probably handled by the likes of ASK4 on their own netwoks, so although a reasonable population, perhaps a fairly thin takeup of BT landlines.

[essenby]

(02-03-2014 02:34 PM)mirdragon Wrote:  . . they should have got the help from BT to build the network, . .

Except at the time, there was NO offer of help, or any other kind of involvement, forthcoming from BT. South Yorkshire did not figure in their (immediate) plans at that time. They only became interested once the DR project had started to roll out and then they ramped up their own offering in order to strangle the take up of DR.

[mirdragon]

BT were looking at it before DRL in certain areas. Where I live we were due to with BT before DRL. But when DRL was announced that disappeared for BT.

In regards to help, DRL should have gone to BT for help at the beginning, even the reports regarding the selling it suggested it was going to go to another private company and not BT.

[alexatkin]

As said before, I'm sure loss of custom for business leased lines is also factored into the viability of an exchange upgrade, particularly relevant for Attercliffe.

Sheffield on the other hand is mostly covered by ASK4 and Virgin I believe.