What at the options 3.5 miles from the exchange?

[oshta]

The exchange has just about everything (ADSL Max, SDSL, 21CN WBC even FTTC) but my friend lives 3.5miles from it and as such gets at best about 1mb broadband. House in question is one of about 6, about half a mile up a lane from the main road, although I understand the phoneline actually comes via a slight detour over the fields! So fairly remote, if also only 10minutes of the motorway.

Mobile signals for most provides isnt great, so I dont know if they would get much better on a 3G mobile link even with well placed receiver, although the EEdo show it as a 4G enabled area, but yet O2 show it as 2G only. A 50gb a month package is also far from cheap, and to be honest even tat appear stingy.

Are there any subscription based 'small business' type options. Even running a cable to the main road would probably be an option, but it just seems really infuriating that you can be in a developed country, so near to so much, yet so far from being able to even browse the internet well or get a decent skype link.


Daniel

[chuckskull]

FTTC should work fine, unless I've missed something. I'm 4 miles from my exchange and sitting here at 80megs. If he's a long way from the cabinet that might drop it down a bit, but it should still be well above 1meg.

[dave87]

As Chuckskull says, with FTTC it is the distance from the cabinet not the exchange that is they key - how far is his local cabinet?

[peterb]

If the friend is on ADSL, then at that distance, he is probably doing well to get 1Mb!

He needs to see if FTTC is available on his number, and as both the previous posters have said, it is down to the distance from the cabinet.

(FTTC - is, as it says, delivery of broadband services to a street cabinet by fibre. The last bit of the connection is over coper, using conventional ASDSL, but the speeds are higher because that last bit is much shorter.)

[oshta]

Sorry, should have mentioned that FTTC is not available at their cabinet.

[peterb]

In that case, either 3G or 4G mobile network if that is available, or satellite - with high latency.

[mycarsavw]

I'm ~4miles from my exchange on an EO line. WHen I had ADSL I was getting, at best, 256kbps down.

I went with WiMax (satellite) and regularly see over 5Mb. Latency hasn't been an issue.

There are dropouts when the weather is horrendous, but these are few and far between.

[Barakka]

I get my Internet by Microwave line-of-sight from about 5 miles away via a dish on my roof, which gives me a solid 10M down / 5M up for £25/month. It was a pricey install (about £100 I think), from Boundless Communications, they're in Chorley so might not go as far down as where you are, but do a search for rural broadband there's always options.

[oshta]

I get my Internet by Microwave line-of-sight from Boundless Communications.

Interesting company, seam to be doing ok as well.

The current plan, having located a BT 'fibre coming here soon' cabinet outside the local is a line of sight link to there, and a deal which involves them getting BT TV and my friends farmhouse getting super fast internet.

So we shall see. Watch this space so to speak!