Milton Keynes Broadband Action Group

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Friday 31st October

My Inbox

I live in Newton Longville and have just returned to the UK from working in the US. When I rang AOL to connect to broadband they informed me that it wasn't available. I rang BT and got the same response.

I have come to the conclusion that Britain has gone backwards since we have been away and has now become a 3rd world country.

Any advice would be useful (short of emigrating).

Regards

Brian

 
256kps is now classed as "broadband".

http://www.pcw.co.uk/News/1145782

Jeff

 
Monday 27th
 
Well had a BT engineer finally come out to test the line in the house for the fault I had been describing to them for 4 weeks, replicated the same fault I was reporting with his equipment, not a surprise tried several modems/cables/filters/routers and pc's all same fault.
 
Did another line test, told him this will be the 8th one done and it would pass, it did.
 
I showed him that would make a connection if a phone was present and receiver lifted.
 
Ran tempo ADSL tests failed due to noise.
 
Went to exchange connection fault not present, went to junction box at the end of street, no fault went to house junction box fault there.
 
He then passed one call to another BT engineer to have a look at junction box just outside house under the path as he could not.

Tuesday 28th

 
woke up at 8:30 tested connection again, connection first time, had a connection all Tuesday, but no BT engineer showed. (never had this working always with fault) but Tuesday worked fine.
 
BT engineer called at 6:30 saying will be round first thing Wednesday, told him had a connection and asked if anything was done late Monday night.
 
Answer: nothing had been done to line or exchange.
 
Wednesday 29th

Still connected (live connection for 28hrs straight no faults) ran all the same test but finally went under path, noise was due to pair coming from road junction to house swapped pair, noise level dissipated, BT have still got call open and have said that that the pair switch had been the only change made form the result of there visits.
 
as from today fault has not occurred and have had no problems, but from what BT have told me at has fixed itself, I believe they have done some work on the card in the exchange
 
I will keep you posted.

Garry, Bardsey Court, Monkston

 

My mate's just failed with NTL in Middleton, Wolston Meadow.

Apparently multiple failures in the area - all with no line of site.

Too many trees apparently.

Jeff

 
Apparently, NTL are actually only LEASING the infrastructure from BT.

It's a 20 year lease, hence why NTL are not willing to invest anything into it.

Jeff
 

I volunteered for the Wireless trial, and today the NTL:home engineers came to check the line of sight and, unfortunately they found that it was not feasible. I live in Pettingrew Close, Walnut Tree. It appears that for most of the people living in that area the wireless option will not work. I can believe the these days they cannot install a fibre optics cable and solve the problem.

Juan

 
Mr BT man came this morning to my home in Kilwinning Drive.

One cup of coffee later my spare line to "coppered" all the way back to the exchange.
Left saying all should be well.

So now I'm waiting for BT to activate it for ADSL. Keeping my fingers crossed!!!!

BTW he did say that Kilwinning Drive has 10 lines available for ADSL. 4 have been taken up already.
So if you live in my street I suggest you get moving fast!

Ian.
 
I've registered on-line, but thought you might like a few (predictable) observations re my ADSL experiences.

Your on-line map from Mr Small is not correct. My house/street is shown as possible - although in fact it is not available. Oddly, a family members house is shown as not available yet he already has ADSL (even though he's only 1/4 mile from my own home!)
[There's no HTML attribute to make the red warning flash!]

Good luck - I'm presently 'between jobs' so apart from missing the ability to use ADSL for job searching etc, do have some time on my hands. Thus, please let me know if I can help.

Cheers

Neal, Walnut Tree
 
Just to let you know NTL installed my wireless broadband yesterday - so far so good.

Let's hope NTL keep it going post trial.

Peter, Loughton
 
Great news - I finally have broadband. 

A combination of extended reach, your campaign group, Serena's help, and sheer persistence on my part has finally paid off.

I am in Cottage Common, Loughton: BT's broadband checker now shows that out of the 18 houses all but 1 (fortunately not mine) should be able to get broadband.

Please keep me on the mailing list for the time being.

Gary
 
I live in Passmore and cannot get Broadband,  Passmore is less than 6km from Bletchley Telephone Exchange, but my line is routed to the exchange at Fishermead "Bradwell Abbey" which is more than 6kms away.

I find it amazing that MK (City of the future) is more like a rural backwater when it comes to broadband.

Thanks for organizing the group.

Ian
 

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