Broadband for Milton Keynes

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BT Meeting

Here's my report from our meeting with BT, held on 22nd September 2003 at Phoenix House.

BT Attendees:

John Small

Director of Customer Satisfaction, BT Retail Business Improvement

Bradley Borum

BT's Milton Keynes Broadband Champion

Tina Robinson

Customer Satisfaction Internal Communications

Serena Shukla

Customer Satisfaction Business Analyst, Milton Keynes Broadband Single Point of Contact

Geoff Gauntlett

 Involved with the technical side of ADSL. Unfortunately Mr Gauntlett was unable to attend.

MK Action Group Attendees:

Marc Eisenstadt

Founder & Chief Scientist, Knowledge Media Institute, at The Open University, a  new media and internet technologies R&D lab, active at both Loughton (as a governor) and Denbigh schools (as an advisor) and generally in the Loughton area.

John Bint

Business Development & Strategy Consultant. Various links with MK's business community. Involvement in local politics as Middleton Ward spokesman and recent Conservative candidate for MK Council. Representing Broughton and Middleton.

Nick Hubbard

Milton Keynes Broadband Group Coordinator.

The report

  1. The copper "overlay" for Monkston TPON is all but complete. There is some "muddling" with the databases and availability checker. This should be resolved within a few days. Monkston is the only estate in Milton Keynes that is served by TPON.

    The overlay cost BT a "six figure sum". A 250 pair cable was run from the "Bradwell Abbey" exchange sited in Fishermead.
     
  2. From the 24th September 2003 the new planning rule for 60dB line loss will be introduced. As an approximation this means the old limit of 5.5km cable length is increased to 6km.
     
  3. With the new planning rule, and the copper "overlay" for Monkston in place, BT estimate that 6400 businesses and residents in Milton Keynes will still not be able to have Broadband.  The Milton Keynes population has 110,000 telephone customers. This gives a 94% coverage.

    John Small emphasised that BT has not given up on the 6400. "This is why I have taken Bradley Borum on board!"
     
  4. Bradley Borum comes from BT's broadband area of business where she's had a number of roles, including running broadband trials.  She also has a keen interest in new town and city planning. Her immediate task is to carry out an analysis of the technical obstacles hindering BT's full roll-out of broadband in Milton Keynes, identify solutions, and provide supporting business cases.
     
  5. Over the last three weeks Bradley has been gleaning information from two telephone engineers that have decades of experience of cable planning and routing within Milton Keynes. Bradley is attempting to establish why some of the cable length is so long in seeming random places. This is no great mystery. It depends when a particular estate had been built and what grid roads had been lain at that time.

    She has focussed on the Stony Stratford, Woburn Sands and Bradwell Abbey telephone areas. The periphery of the "Bradwell Abbey" area covers the estates of Loughton, Great Linford, Willen, Middleton. (The majority of our group's membership.)
     
  6. BT are considering the following solution. Cables with a better Broadband performance are run between the telephone exchange building and green cabinets. There are typically 20 green cabinets in an estate. They allow any exchange pair to connected to any distribution pair.

    The solution is still in discussion, and subject to demonstrable commitment from residents to take up the service. BT would want to see a commitment from external parties: MK Council, English Partnerships, SEEDA.
     
  7. Marc Eisenstadt explained the wireless internet service that the Open University has deployed for use by local schools.
     
  8. There will be a further meeting in October. Bradley will report on her findings on the Bradwell Abbey telephone area. She will have some "what if" scenarios.
     
  9. John Small is happy to hold a meeting open to all members. It would be more productive to hold it after Bradley has completed her investigations.
     
  10. As mentioned above, from the 24th the new planning rule for 60dB line loss is introduced.

    John Small will be interested to hear of any difficulties experienced. Members would keep a simple diary logging all details of their application. This will be of use should there be problems.
     
  11. There is a significant proportion of the membership that is au fait with IT and telecoms. These technically aware members would prefer clear reports, with no "dumbing-down".

    Vague reports can be misinterpreted. This would reduce the number of rumours that circulate in the group.
     
  12. Nick, group coordinator, requested that BT provide more textual reports. Nick feels transliterating verbal conversations over the last few months has worn thin!
     
  13. The current Group membership stands at 460. We now encompass all of Milton Keynes, not just our home ground in Monkston.
     

The report on the previous meeting with BT.

Agenda

Links

Follow these links to read the previous and future BT meeting reports:

June 2003
November 2003
February 2004

Milton Keynes Broadband Home

Activities

November's Meeting

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