News
| Assorted updates regarding Scotland, Edge Telecom and wireless ISPs |
| Posted 23:39:27, 03 October 2007 by Sam |
Firstly, apologies for the lack of visible updates as of late. I've recently started a new job and have been working horrifically long hours! Rest assured that ISP data is still being updated in the background, so your exchange pages should be right up to date. With that said I'll move on to a few assorted news items...
Update to the Scottish exchanges story
The Highlands and Islands Enterprise have informed me that the four exchanges that appeared to be overdue for their upgrade (Birsay, Fern, Uig and Vidlin) have in fact now been upgraded. The exchanges were technically not delayed after all, as they were live in August. However, they still required a further 3 weeks of testing by BT!
Edge Telecom rollout progresses
Edge Telecom is a company that many broadband users may not have even heard of. However, in their former incarnation they were installing broadband in rural Cambridgeshire long before BT did. Their installation of kit in to the Holborn exchange signifies further expansion out of Cambridge and in to the busy central London market. Further central London exchanges are also planned over the coming months.
New wireless providers being incorporated
We'll be incorporating coverage data from a few more wireless providers over the coming weeks. First and foremost though is the 'Advanced Broadband' service being provided by Lincolnshire Council in partnership with BT. They currently have over 100 businesses using their 2Mbps symmetric wireless product, which is available to qualifying small businesses for £49 a month (for 18 months) with no connection charge (The price after that is £249 per month). Availability information for these services will be incorporated in to the checker systems shortly. |
| Additional Scottish exchange upgrades |
| Posted 15:11:13, 16 September 2007 by Sam |
Last month we reported that eighteen exchanges in Scotland were being upgraded, either by having full ADSL installed or by having additional "Exchange Activate" capacity added. We now hear that a further four exchanges are being upgraded to full ADSL and another ten are being given additional Exchange Activate capacity.
The four additional exchanges to receive full ADSL (including 8Mbps ADSL Max from BT Wholesale) are:
The ten additional exchanges that will receive additional Exchange Activate capacity are:
Please note that no dates have been given for any of these upgrades. Also, four of the exchanges which were due for upgrades in August 2007 have apparently slipped. These are: Birsay, Fern, Uig and Vidlin.
Exchange Activate was a BT scheme popular particularly in Scotland which saw rural exchanges that wouldn't otherwise have received ADSL be activated for it, albeit at a maximum of 512kbps. Nowadays 512kbps considered by many to not even fall under the "broadband" definition. |
| New exchange online in Swindon |
| Posted 14:44:41, 16 September 2007 by Sam |
The brand new Haydon Wick exchange finally came online this week after repeated delays. The exchange has been built to "accommodate growth in the area following commencement of a significant building development" (See original BT Openreach announcement from April).
About 2500 lines are being transferred from the neighbouring Blunsdon exchange. The following phone number prefixes will be affected:
01793 72xxxx
01793 700xxx
01793 701xxx
01793 702xxx
01793 703xxx
01793 704xxx
For more details of the developments and struggles involved in bringing this exchange online, see this thread on the ThinkBroadband message boards. |
| Updated 21CN trial pricing |
| Posted 14:58:18, 14 August 2007 by Sam |
BT Wholesale's Consult21 team have published indicative trial pricing for the Real Time QoS option for the new Wholesale Broadband Connect product. As with the pricing for Assured Sessions (the other QoS option), there is a massive difference between pricing between "Band 1 exchanges" and "Band 2 exchanges" (of which there are ~1016 and ~4500 respectively).
| QoS Product | End User Charge (per month) | AP Bandwidth Charges |
|---|
| Real Time | Band 1: £2.20 for 220kbps
Band 1: £3.20 for 350kbps
Band 1: £6.20 for 700kbps
Band 2: £6.00 for 220kbps
Band 2: £9.00 for 350kbps
Band 2: £18.00 for 700kbps | £70.00/month per Mbit
(in addition to the £67.90 p.m for each contracted Mbit) |
The Consult21 documentation says that this pricing difference reflects the additional cost of delivering bandwidth to more remote areas. A similar scheme already exists on the present-day IPStream product, although the difference is only £1.24 of the monthly connection. But with these new cost differences being much larger than that, it is hard to see how ISPs will not be forced to implement regional pricing (at least for QoS sessions).
On a related note, trial MSIL pricing has also been released. For the duration of the trial only the 1Gbps MSIL product will be available. See the 21CN and Broadband page for the full pricing breakdown of both MSIL products and the QoS options.
Update: Keith over at TeleBusillis has put up an excellent article analysing the effect that these new prices might have on the broadband market. |
| Eighteen Scottish Exchange Activate exchanges to be upgraded |
| Posted 14:29:46, 14 August 2007 by Sam |
The Scottish Executive has identified 18 exchanges that are suffering capacity issues and will be upgrading these between now and February 2008. All of these exchanges received ADSL as a part of BT's Exchange Activate scheme, which has brought ADSL to around 150 exchanges (nearly all of which are in Scotland).
Unfortunately, Exchange Activate limits those connected to the exchange to 512kbps and places certain restrictions on which ISPs the customers may use. Fourteen of the exchanges that will be upgraded will see full ADSL installed (with support for the 8Mbps ADSL Max product). These exchanges are as follows:
The four other exchanges - Birsay, Fern, Uig and Vidlin - will receive additional capacity for Exchange Activate connections (we assume this to mean an additional DSLAM).
Further information can be found on the Scottish Executive website. |
Where's the rest of the news gone? Try the news archive!
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