| Posted: Sunday 5th August 2007 by
Sam |
As you may have already noticed, the website has undergone a makeover. The old look had been there for four years now, so we decided to have a bit of a change. We have tried to keep a similar feel to the site, and hope that both new and existing users find the updated layout agreeable. We also decided to lose the name "The Broadband Resource", as I don't think a single person ever called the site by that name!
Of course, the changes are more than just skin deep. Here's a few of the other changes that have been made:- Exchange searching has been improved. You can now search by exchange name, exchange code, phone number and postcode all on the one page.
- The FAQ and provider summaries have received a much needed update. I got a lot of questions from people new to the broadband world who are confused about how LLU works and why providers use both this and BT's network. I hope the new FAQ items clear this up.
- We've gotten rid of the "ADSL enablement summary" that appeared on the right hand side of the front page. With almost every region now at 100% exchange coverage (note: not phone line coverage!), we felt that these statistics were rather redundant. We've replaced them with a summary of how many providers a user has to choose from in each region (averaged across all of the exchanges there). See the region pages for a better explanation of these figures. Personally I'm not convinced that this is the best way of displaying the data, so if anyone has any alternative suggestions I'd love to hear them.
- The regions and counties pages have been updated to show more than just ADSL coverage. They now incorporate ADSL Max, SDSL and LLU coverage.
- Exchange Activate exchanges are also properly represented on the site now. These are exchanges which were enabled for ADSL by BT in partnership with an RDA or private enterprise, and are notably limited to 512kbps.
- Each provider page (such as Be's page) has been updated to incorporate a dynamic map of their coverage (this updates at least once per week).
- A error reporting page has been added and linked from every exchange page. I get a few emails a week from people concerned that the exchange location is incorrect (i.e. the postcode) or that a provider is listed there in error. This is intended to make the reporting of such problems easier. Thanks for these reports - they're much appreciated!
This is not the end to the changes planned for this summer either. There's one or two more substantial additions that will make an appearance over the coming weeks, as well as a few minor visual changes too. Of course, if you have any comments or suggestions I'd very much like to hear from you! |