Broadband from the Woolley exchange

To respond to many questions about this topic, this page provides information on the current state of broadband services for villages served by the Woolley exchange, which include Spaldwick, Ellington, Easton, Alconbury and Alconbury Weston.

For more information please email broadband@spaldwick.com.

While broadband in the area is ‘flakey’ for some residents, there’s are things that you can do to improve it. Mark Heath has produced an Increase Broadband Speed page to help you get the most our of your existing broadband service.

We now have access to local loop unbundling (LLU) services!

Broadband was introduced by BT to the Woolley exchange in 2004, which covers the villages of:

• Spaldwick
• Ellington
• Easton
• Alconbury
• Alconbury Weston.

As with many other rural areas, broadband service is patchy, with speeds between 0.5Mbps and 5Mbps (with a good line). 

Surrounding BT exchanges (such as Buckden) have for some time offered ‘unbundled’ broadband services (e.g. Talk Talk), where other companies place their own equipment in BT exchanges.

New! Talk Talk launched an unbundled broadband service from the Woolley exchange in December 2011. This is technically more advanced than the current BT service, using ADSL2+ rather than ADSL, and offers higher speeds (at a lower price). Read our information about the best broadband services for the Woolley exchange.

BT currently does not plan to roll out superfast broadband to our area

In some areas of the country, new technologies are being introduced (using optical fibre) to deliver fixed broadband download speeds of up to 100Mbps. This is being termed ‘superfast broadband’. BT currently plans to provide superfast broadband to 66% of the population by 2014. Unfortunately, our area will not be part of this.

As we are a rural area, the only thing we will see in the foreseeable future is the introduction by BT of a technology called ADSL2+, which is being rolled out as part of BT’s ’21CN’ upgrade programme. We currently have ADSL.  BT plans to launch ADSL2+ from the Woolley exchange by May 31 2012. However, ADSL2+ is already available via the Talk Talk network, which offers the best broadband services currently available from the Woolley exchange.

Due to its rural location, there is little prospect of cable services being introduced in the area.

The current fixed broadband service from Woolley is ‘patchy’

For a number of reasons, fixed broadband services from Woolley are patchy, particularly in terms of speeds, with significant differences between houses in the same street. With a good line and installation, download connection speeds of about 1.5-4Mbps are achieved by many households. However, performance for some homes can be considerably lower than this. There are a number of causes that we have identified for poor performance, such as:

• Poor indoor wiring. We have found many houses without a BT master socket and with poor wiring (e.g. with many extension sockets). Even with filters correctly placed on extension sockets, the fact that the broadband signals travels throughout the house can substantially reduce speeds. 
• Poor BT line quality from the home back to the exchange. Broadband benefits from having a high-quality (and ideally short) connection from the home back to the exchange. Unfortunately, some houses have poorer lines back to the exchange and do not always follow the expected, shortest, route. There is very little that can be done, as BT is reluctant to replace cables (which are often underground).
• Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise (REIN) on the phone line. It is not well known that broadband signals are highly susceptible to interference (for example, from plasma TVs, faulty thermostats and electronic equipment).
• Limited speeds of broadband packages. Unknowingly, some people have subscribed to packages with a fixed maximum download speed (e.g. 1Mbps).

In the vast majority of homes that we have visited, we have been able to substantially improve the speed and performance of broadband. In most cases, this has been through the installation of a special filtered faceplate (typically £10) that fits onto the BT master socket. This isolates extension wiring from the broadband signal and, generally, we have seen broadband speeds increase from 1Mbps or less to 2-4Mbps. However, this improvement cannot be guaranteed for everyone. View the new Increase Broadband Speed page.

Many residents are put off from improving their broadband service

A key challenge – which explains why so many houses in our area have suffered from poor performance – is the way in which broadband is managed and sold. BT Openreach is responsible for maintaining BT’s broadband network, but is separate from the ISP, responsible for the broadband service to the end user. We have seen people being really frustrated trying to get in touch with their ISP about poor line speeds. In most cases, people in call centres (now mostly in India) talk people through a basic checklist for users to check (e.g. that modems are switched on, etc) and, very rarely do issues get flagged to BT Openreach (as the ISP may get charged for this).

We try to help as many people as I can with their broadband services, and we have found that it’s only by visiting a home can problems be resolve. The ‘system’ for addressing faults (where BT threatens to charge a substantial sum if a fault with their network is not found) puts off most people from successfully improving their broadband service.

Satellite broadband services are improving but have disadvantages

There have been a number of recent developments in the use of satellites to provide high-quality broadband services to rural areas such as ours. However, as discussed on our new Satellite Broadband page, satellite broadband has a number of potential disadvantages companred with ADSL, including high cost of installation, relatively low monthly usage allowances and relatively high latency.

Mobile broadband services will not provide a viable alternative in the foreseeable future

Mobile broadband services represent an interesting development, which potentially could provide an alternative to BT fixed broadband services, particularly for those households currently  ‘stuck’ with poor speeds.

Currently, 3 provides very marginal 3G coverage to the area. In fact, I have had to cancel 3 contracts for me and my family due to this. Vodafone, Orange and O2 do not provide any 3G coverage. Despite the fast that the UK mobile operators paid a total of £22.5 billion for its 3G licences, they have failed to provide the same level of coverage with its 3G networks than with its 2G networks. This has recently been recognised by Ofcom, the industry regulator.

Eventually, a next-generation mobile broadband technology (called LTE) will be introduced in the UK by mobile operators, although this will take many years to be introduced, and will generally be targeted at urban areas. This is a shame as LTE has great potential in villages like ours where fixed broadband provision is so poor.

The UK government has pledged to make the UK the best place for superfast broadband in Europe by 2015

Recently, the UK government pledged to bring superfast broadband to rural areas, earmarking £530 million of public money. This money is from the BBC licence fee and was originally to help people with the switch-over to digital TV.

In December 2010, the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced that its £530 million funding would be targeted at building a ‘digital hub’ (with a fibre-optic Internet connection) in all communities by 2015. He said that local communities and local operators would be expected to take on the responsibility for connecting homes to the digital hub.

As part of this initiative, Cambridgeshire Council Council has recently announced plans for investment in superfast broadband across Cambridgeshire, targeting 90% coverage of premises by 2015. For more information, view our Superfast Broadband in Cambridgeshire page.

For more information please email broadband@spaldwick.com.