Broadband for Milton Keynes

Interested in lobbying BT for Broadband access? Contact us!

Monday 29th September

A step closer...

I had a visit from BT last Saturday morning.

A nice engineer spent an hour connecting a telephone line to my house from the exchange at Fishermead.

"It's a shame really. They've got you down for a special line test. The other six people I've done I just moved them straight over. I guess all the kit's at the exchange ready to go. But you've got to have a new line. Makes work for me, but I don't mind. It's a nice sunny morning."

He busied himself for an hour with the DP's under the manholes either side of Abbeydore Grove, and the grey cabinet along Bridlington Crescent.

"OK! An engineer will be along next week. He'll put a gizmo on your line, and do a line loss test from the exchange. As soon as he says 'Yes' I'll come back and swap you over and get you up and running. Waste of time - it's all going to work! It's a shame I can't connect you now."

Currently I have 3 circuits running to the exchange, Home Highway, PSTN, and the new line, but no Broadband!

I'm being very patient, and not taking it that seriously.

My Inbox

Progress with Monkston continues...

I am now on ADSL happily surfing and downloading like it's going out of fashion! (However, can we set up another group dealing with the setup of a wireless home network?!? Arrrrgh!)

I chose Zen for my ISP. Zen seemed to be a name that popped up frequently on this list - mainly because they only tie you in for a month. So far, their Customer Service has been excellent and I've had no problems with the ADSL service itself.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to you and others for ultimately making this possible. Clearly we would not be in this situation had it not been for the combined efforts of all concerned and so with this in mind it's a very big thank-you to everyone. OK, but I'm not buying everyone a beer!

Can you keep me on the list? I'd really like to keep abreast of developments...

Once again, many thanks to all and good luck!

Kind regards
Cameron, Monkston

Greetings from Netley Court, Monkston. I'm e-mailing you over a Zen-supplied ADSL link!

The history of my order:

The usual BT Broadband Availability Checker shenanigans - placed an order assuming everything was OK, heard nothing from BT for ages, phoned them to be advised that my order had been cancelled, though the call centre operative couldn't tell me why!

Changed my phone call provider the next day in protest!

Discussed same with work chums. One advised of bb4monkston website. Registered. Contacted Serena Shukla, BT.

Re-ordered through Zen when advised to.

Zen gave me an activation date of 24th September 2003. I raced home from work, plugged in my shiny Netgear wireless router, and......NOTHING!!

Logged a fault with Zen, received a call 4 hours later from BT, who made an appointment to come and visit on Friday, 26th. BT Engineer (polite, friendly, helpful) duly arrived, performed a quick check in the house, then drove down to the Exchange, where he discovered that I was still hanging off fibre!! He informed me that he was going to attempt a switch over to copper - and I nearly exploded with joy when I observed a green link light on the router! BT engineer returned, performed 5 minute test, and said I was good to go!

Please keep me on the mailing list - hope to hear many more success stories in the coming weeks and months!

Kind regards,
Bruce, Monkston

I found your site after being frustrated for the past year or so having bought a house in Willen. When I was looking at the house, the "line checker" told me a "maybe"; I was particularly frustrated that there seems to be no way to *know* whether broadband is available without actually *buying the house*. I was unlucky, and since then have had to suffer a little with one-way satellite broadband (which I have to say is better than ISDN and at around £40 a month not too expensive).

I applied to trial the 60dB extended reach -- and was turned down on line quality immediately (which makes me wonder why the I'd initially had a "maybe" when I bought the house..)

Please add me to your list. If there's any Willen-specific information you've collected, I would of course be interested to hear it (especially, are we on TPON or just a long length of copper?) [Copper]

If there's anything I can do to help the effort of course just ask.

Cheers
Julian, Willen

I wish to join the Broadband Action Group.

Julian

I read with interest broadband for Monkton and Middleton notes and specifically the loss specification changes from 55db to 60 dB was mentioned.

I have been trying in vain (so far) to track down from which specification this came.

Do you know anyone who might be able to tell me?

[BT press release: http://www.btplc.com/Mediacentre/Archivenewsreleases/2003/NR0339.htm]

Thanks

Peter

If as we expect the NTL wireless system is going to mirror the standard NTL cable. This is what we can expect speed wise.........

Service	Download Speed	Upload Speed
150K Broadband	Up to 150Kbps	Up to 64Kbps
600K Broadband	Up to 600Kbps	Up to 128Kbps
1Mb Broadband	Up to 1024Kbps	Up to 256Kbps

Colin

How many people have actually got BB in Monkston now and where are they?

I ordered via Zen on 17-09-03 and installation date was 25-09-03.

Of course it doesn't work, there is no line sync - I run an IT company (you may have seen one or two of our vans parked on Blanchland Circle!) and have the knowledge to get round their excuses. I also have the ability to test using 3 different ADSL modems and 3 makes of MicroFilter - stopped the hardware being blamed anyway!

Any info would be great as I am confused that they could even supply ADSL (cabinet outside my house is still Grey - Fibre) and even say the order has been completed and activated!!

Regards,

Gary, Monkston

We're now up and running at around 500 kbps. Strange isn't it?

Julian, Willen

Has anyone on the wireless trial list received the letter expected at the end of last week relating to the trail? [No]

Colin, Middleton

I've been lurking in this group for a while but as I had a wireless connection installed last Tuesday, I thought I should give you some info on the Trial status.

Council Wireless Pilot - installation in Loughton

I live in London Road, Loughton where the 7.1 km exchange distance has even prevented home highway from being available, so a wireless connection is extremely welcome. Wireless is not a certainty though as a friend further down London Road was unable to receive a suitable signal due to his line of site being obscured by trees in a neighbour's garden. It would seem that to
receive a sufficient signal strength you will need an un-obscured line of site to the Linford Wood mast.

The data rate is 600kb/sec downstream and 128kb/sec upstream and AIUI contended to 20:1 and sufficient to download a 1.25 MB file in about 20 seconds.

The network status currently only has access to Neil Illingworth's server at Luton i.e. no Internet access ( which as someone pointed out can be seen at http://www.wirefreebb.co.uk/ ). {Neil Illingworth is the NTL Project Manager for the Milton Keynes Trial.}

For those who have visited the web site you will see that the trial currently consists of testing the data link under different weather/ time-of-day conditions. I have not yet been given a date for full Internet access, I presume that will wait until more of the trial members have been connected.

Hope that helps

Bob, Loughton.

I also had an activation date of the 24th, and then was told on the 26th that my order failed the line test following a Line Quality Survey by BT which came back with the result "Line Loss out of limits".

My ISP will now be submitting my order for the fourth time since I first applied.

I'm not as patient as Nick. I'm starting to get seriously annoyed that BT still hasn't got its internal processes sorted out. They've had long enough. This kind of problem now is just plain incompetence. If they didn't have regulatory protection they'd be out of business in no time.

Regards

Ian C, Monkston

Just to let you know that my application for ADSL with Freedom 2 Surf has been accepted and I have been given an installation date of the 8th October.

I just want to say a huge thank you to you and all the people involved with the campaign.

Thank you again

Ian R, Monkston

Having recently moved into Kents Hill estate from Leighton Buzzard, we also found ourselves in the same situation as yourself. We had broadband through NTL (brilliant). Now using AOL through internal modem at an amazingly fast speed of 56k (ha ha).

Hopefully adding our name to the campaign will help speed up not only BT's response but the internet connection as well.

Derek, Kents Hill

I'm very interested in being a part of the Council's Wireless Broadband Pilot, but I'm not sure of the criteria, the timescales or whether the time has indeed already lapsed to apply.

Could you please 'point' me where I should go?

I've been wanting Broadband services in my area of Milton Keynes for quite some time now. Apparently I live too far from the exchange.

Please help and thanks in advance!

K S, Bletchley

[The Council's Wireless Pilot has over 400 names. It's over subscribed!
You can put your name down on a reserved list here.

Where you live in Bletchley is only 2.6km in a direct line from the BT exchange at Emerson Valley.
It may be worth you reapplying with an ISP. BT have increased a planning rule: Broadband can now be supplied over a cable distance up to 6km.]

I too was used to a luxurious 512k connection with NTL in Nottingham. Then I had to drop down to 56k since moving down to Milton Keynes in the late 90`s when I moved down here due to the high unemployment in Nottingham, and not wanting to scrounge off the government

As for Milton Keynes council not wanting there pavements dug up I personally think that the council could do with resurfacing most of the pavements in Milton Keynes, why don't they come to an arrangement with the broadband provider to supply them with the material if they agree to carry out all the work of resurfacing the pavements on the estates where they install broadband.

Moan and groan over for now

Mike, Great Linford

I'd like to join your group if I may please.

Although I am not a Milton Keynes resident today I will be in approximately a months time. I was totally shocked to find I won't be able to get broadband. For the past three years I've been living in a small fairly remote village with broadband widely available; move to a large town and can't get it.

Terry, Loughton

You can add me to the chart of copper migration progress. As of 8:30 this morning I now have BB from Zen.

Thanks for all the tireless efforts.

Chris, Monkston

Have you considered using satellite as the backbone of these products rather than an NTL connection? We offer services to do with mobile satellite and fixed satellite technologies. These have competitive prices and are movable. You can relocate the wireless antennae or if you wanted to add a 'base station' to the network we could have a pipe installed within' a few days. You can then set trigger levels for enabling area's and once the trigger level is set implement the technology within' 2 weeks.

Graham Stewart, GSDT

Just to let you know that I live in Monkston and am now on broadband.

Thanks for all the hard work you and the group put in.

Regards

Simon

Just a note to say as of Friday I've been enjoying over 500k downstream and loving it!!

I'm connected with Zen and all was pretty painless really, once you let them know that your one of the TPON conversions they handle the rest of the headaches with BT.

Thanks for all efforts Nick over the past months and I'll be along on Thursday to buy you a drink or two.

Cheers,
Jon, Monkston

I have registered for a trial wireless distribution from Linford Wood.

I was assured something would happen by September, but I am still waiting.

What irks me the most is that there is nowhere you can register your disgust with BT, after they tell you broadband is not available.

I understand in Russia the distance is 13 Km from the exchange. If this is so (told me by a BT Technocrat) why not here?

[ADSL will run over longer distances. The problem is with "NEXT" where one ADSL resident would cause interference with a neighbour's ADSL. To prevent these problems BT restrict the distance to 6km.]

Trevor, Loughton

I have also been given the run-around from BT re: Broadband access.

From your experiences, will Walnut Tree be able to enjoy the same improvement in availability as Monkston residents?

Look forward to hearing from you

John, Walnut Tree

Links

Milton Keynes Broadband Home

Activities

If you live in Milton Keynes, and want Broadband, let us know!