Milton Keynes Broadband Action Group

Interested in lobbying BT for Broadband access? Contact us!

Thursday 23rd October

This email is being sent to all 606 members of the MK Broadband Action Group.

1, Reapply for Broadband

If you have not reapplied for broadband since the 9th September... do so!
BT's planning rule was extended to 6km.

Visit the most reliable ADSL on-line checker.

2, Problems with BT?

Call our helpful BT contact Serena.

3, Leafleting

Bradwell, Two Mile Ash, Great Holm and Crownhill are now being leafleted.

4, Middleton

Last week's Loughton map caused some interest.

Middleton folk asked for one as well:

Where next?

5, Informal meeting

We'll be having our informal pint this Thursday at 20:30 at the Crosskeys in Woolstone.

Our regular, The Swan, is being refurbished after a dramatic increase in business over the last few months.

6, Email List

If you have not done so already, join our email list:

This gives you an opportunity to communicate directly with other group members.

7, New URL

The Milton Keynes Broadband Action Group web site is now:

www.bb4mk.org

We have become less Monkston centric and more focussed on the whole of MK.

Flier

Andy has created a flier for our use.

ADSLGuide

Tony, our deputy for Bradwell, writes:

I read with interest the article on ADSL in Milton Keynes. The coverage of ADSL is truly appalling to the extent one of the BT officials I have dealt with calling it "scandalous". There are large areas of the city (whole estates) that although they are only 4 or 5km away from an enabled exchange are unable to pass the new 60DB tests. This includes portions of the business centre.

My own property is an example of this, line length tested by an engineer on-site is 4.4km but the dB reading is 65.4. This is a property with aluminium to the door built 20 years ago 2km from the town centre. The 60dB limit has allowed a few more properties access but still leaves many hundreds without. A lot of the work with BT i.e. the installation of copper in Monkston that Mr Jewel talks about has actually been undertaken in conjunction with our group BB4MK.

BT is aware that MK has infrastructure issues and have assigned a contact to the group to look at complaints from people applying for the service. Although to date no further rectification work has taken place other than the additional copper lying in Monkston, we are hopeful that BT will investigate areas in the city that should really be within the required limits.

BB4MK is actively leafleting residents and pushing both the council and BT to provide better Brodband access in the area. MK is crying out for alternative Internet access either cable (unlikely that NTL will spend the £1100 per person required), wireless trials (underway - but is it suitable for such a large number of residents) or Power (not on the table at this time).

It is a frustrating time for home working, small business and residential users in MK but we will keep the pressure on.

Regards
Tony Cook

My Inbox

More bad news for Middleton:

The nice men from NTL came this morning and extended their mast as high as it would go, but still failed to find a signal.

Ho hum...........Back to chasing BT.

David, Skipton Close, Willen Park

Just had NTL come and try to get a signal, however no joy. Signal blocked by trees along H7. Engineer says success running at about 70%.

He thinks most of Bardsey Court and near by streets would suffer same fate on signal to Linford Wood Tower.

However all they need to do is put a repeater in on Wavenden Comms tower which is visible by eye from most of Monkston.

I am going to try ADSL again. The line checker now says I'm within reach due to changes in planning rules.

Regards

Peter, Bardsey Court, Monkston

PS Keep up the excellent work.

It does seem that NTL are getting a very high portion of failures as they get to the 5km limit.

I know, before I get shot down, that this is a feasibility trial and that's the whole idea, but Great Linford seems to me not the ideal location for the base link. Most of the affected areas are in the South corners of MK, either on the edge of the signal (Middleton and Loughton) if they have line of site, or out of it like Kents Hill, Walnut Tree etc.

After my failed installation I was talking to The NTL guys and they said they may consider localised base stations as a solution. The Brickhill Woods tower is clearly visible to the South East of the City hopefully they may consider installing a transmitter there.

Colin

[Geraint writes: Great Linford is not ideal for our area, but it has one main advantage:
The transmitter is owned by NTL, so space on the mast is effectively free.
The Brickhill transmitter is owned by Crown Castle and I would suspect NTL would have to pay for space.]

NTL are doing their wireless trial right now, just as we are well and truly into Autumn at which point most trees are well and truly bereft of foliage.

Trees cause problems with line of sight.

I may be preaching doom here, but what happens to those that *do* currently have line of sight and the trees get their leaves back (darn those pesky trees!) in Spring?

Didn't Ionica have a similar problem years back?

Andrew

Whoopee. I finally got ADSL in Great Holm this week. The extended reach worked for me at 5.65km from exchange.

Andy

It works, we have it.

Thank you for all your work

Simon, Monkston

We live in Wavendon Gate on Woburn Sands exchange and too far away for bb.

We have ordered numerous times and this has simply corrected BT's checker - it used to say 'maybe' and now it says 'too far away'!

Has Wavendon Gate has come up in conversation with BT, the NTL trial, etc?

Regards
Stuart

Wavendon Gate...We're too far for either I'm afraid :(

I'm on Coggeshall Grove, in the process of moving to a broadband area - yes I know it's drastic.

Jeff

I have had three attempts at getting broadband ( I live on Heelands), the last one after the limits were raised was successfully, I was told by the BT Engineer that my line loss was 59.4 and I had an amber on one of the other tests.

However I have had it a week now and its wonderful.

I would like to thank everybody in the group for all the info they have provided through the newsgroup as I have learnt so much by just reading all the mails.

Nick please keep me on the mailing list because I am sure that I will continue to pick up hints and tips from the members.

Bryan

I see there is a campaigner's site on the BT site:

http://62.172.198.79/broadband1/where_i_live/campaigns/current_campaigns_search.asp

I don't see a Milton Keynes or Stony Stratford (where my exchange is) campaign - have you guys thought about setting one up?

Dave

[Ah... that old chestnut!]

Just been back to the BT website and used their line checker to test for availability, rejected again due to the 6km rule.
So, just out interest, I then went through the business link and checked it as if i was a small business and bingo!! subject to a line test they tell me I will be up and running.

Do you know my chances of the line test being positive?

Many thanks,

Simon

[I'd test with BT's on-line checker.]

With two PC's running happily on my new Broadband connection, I heartily endorse reapplying for Broadband. I would also say that the service I got from Zen Internet, in pushing and pushing BT long after I'd given up all hope, was a lesson in persistence rewarded. They were first class, and I thank you for the recommendation.

I'm down in the SW corner of Bradwell Common, on the edge of the pink shaded area on your map, and probably more than 6 cable kilometres from the exchange in Fishermead (Bradwell Abbey). It took more than 4 weeks to establish the connection, which involved clean new connections in the house and in the street, as well as a new card in the exchange. Most of all though, it took a BT engineer (Engineer no 3) who was determined to stick with it until it worked.

Co-incidentally I'm sure, BT are currently pulling lots of cable through the ducts down the middle of Bradwell Common, so maybe we'll get even better performance in the future.

Thanks for your moral and practical support, and Good Luck to the Group.

Kind regards

John, Bradwell Common

I'm sorry to read the "no luck" reports, so I wanted to redress the balance with another wireless success story. I'm so close to the edge of the coverage map (extreme SW corner of Shenley Lodge) that I was certain it would be a NO, but here I am, downloading at impressive speed. And with my mail relay sorted too, thanks to John Baker's helpful post about the NTLworld SMTP mail server.

If it makes anyone feel better, having had ADSL BB taken away from me once before, I'll be doubly devastated if the trial concludes with wireless BB being taken away from me too. For *everyone's* sake let's hope it's a huge success.

Re. The trees in spring time, the karma must be good for me at the moment, because the Parks Trust this very afternoon felled 4 huge poplars at the edge of my property which were teasingly close to the LOS to the tower!

I WILL make it down to the Swan/Crosskeys one Thursday soon :-)

Neil, Shenley Lodge

I've had the council/NTL Wireless adaptor installed for about a week now.

So far so good.

Tim

I have reapplied for broadband and again got the "line not good enough" response. I have been trying (through Serena who is currently on holiday) to get a categoric statement about what can be done about this.

Needless to say I am not impressed that BT has just launched its 1MB broadband service when I can't even get 512k!

Steve, Pennyland

I have been trying to get broadband for nearly 18 months now to no avail.

I applied to BT to upgrade from my dial up connection to an ADSL connection and was told that my house was indeed covered by the internet revolution; I got numerous emails congratulating me on the impending broadband connection.

I waited with baited breath and the ADSL modem duly arrived.

Unfortunately 24 hours before the connection date I was told that my line had in fact failed the test and I couldn't get broadband to my house. I only found this out because I made a routine phone call to BT to see if the problem I was having with my email was due to the "BIG" switch over the following day.

I sent the modem back to BT only to get a demand for the return of the modem 3 months later. !!!

I applied to Pipex about 6 months afterwards and was told that I couldn't get broadband because my line had failed, but I got more congratulation emails, so I checked with BT, they said the line had passed and I was due for installation the following Monday.

I called Pipex to ask them to clarify and in the space of 90 mins (whilst I held on the phone) Pipex was told by BT that the line had passed, failed, passed and eventually failed.

A few months ago I got an email from Pipex (not BT) saying that BT were doing an "extended reach" trial and this could mean that I would fall into the "net" (excuse the pun). I emailed BT to ask if this was true and why I wasn't informed of this trial. They couldn't tell me why I hadn't been informed but asked if I wanted to be considered for the trial. They sent me a modem. Then told me the line had failed!!!

They have never requested the modem back and I'm not spending my money sending it to them.

After the initial difficulties with BT I got hold of the chairman's email address ben.verwaayen@bt.com and sent him an email entitled "BT & customer service. Is there a link?"

Ben made the usual apologies and passed me over to the Senior VP of the Internet division duncan.ingram@bt.com. Duncan made some enquiries which lead to nothing apart from 3 months free dial up connection (a promotion they were running for new connections anyway).

The long and the tall of it is that I ended up very frustrated with nothing to show for my efforts.

The biggest thing that winds me up the most is the total monopoly that BT have in the MK area, I have no choice, if I want internet connection at a reasonable price I have to use BT phone lines.

Two last points and I'll stop this ranting!!

1. I had a NTL guy come round the house talking about the TV services. I asked him about the telephony services and he said that NTL were indeed about to offer phone connections within the next 6 months. With a bit of luck (yeah right!!) I'll be able to dump BT for good and exercise a choice.

2. Scottish power were on the news talking about offering broadband through the power supply cables, so as to reach the out reach areas in the highlands. Why can't we in the technological wilderness that is Milton Keynes have the same, because again BT would be out of my house quicker than shit thru a goose.

Enough now as I'm getting upset; so back to my Open University studies to calm down.

Regards
Ian, Bradwell Village

AT LAST!!!!

Well I have NTL coming on Thursday to install my link.
I live in Kilwinning Drive Monkston.

Working from home will be so much easier now. Oh and online gaming!!!

Ian, Kilwinning Drive, Monkston

[It's a shame that BT haven't got their database (Systems, procedures, Brains?) in gear. Copper is available in Kilwinning Drive. They've just spent over £100,000 to put it there!]

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