In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, Chris
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>I live in an area 4Km from the BT exchange as the crow flies and 9 Km
>as the phone cable runs. ADSL on new extended range has failed BT
>engineer's best attempts.
Do you happen to know the attenuation figures - or were they not
measured as there wasn't any sign of an ADSL signal?
>Has anyone ever had success in getting BT
>to run a new cable?
There's been a lot of people asking about new cable since 6 September -
and I've not yet heard of anyone who has been successful when the issue
is that their line is just too long for ADSL to work.
In areas where people are pressing for copper overlay to be provided for
TPON - that is providing some copper pairs to areas currently served by
passive fibre (which doesn't support DSL), progress is often very slow
despite there being hundreds or even thousands of subscribers in the
affected area. In at least one case where BT have indicated they will do
the work, the promised work won't happen until early next year at the
earliest.
The justification for extensive new cabling to people who are too far
from the exchange is much harder to make - the number of potential
subscribers is often much lower, and there's no existing ductwork (or
cable routes even if there's no spare duct space) to utilise.
>There is house that can get 1Mb service 1.5 Km
>away.
BT now install 1Mbit ADSL with 60dB attenuation. I'm unclear here
whether that house has 1Mbit, or you're going by the checker results
(which are estimates only, and if it says 'may' for 1Mbit, it may be
worse than 60dB).
The highest working attenuation figure I've heard of for 512 under the
new limits was somewhere around 72dB, which is somewhere around 1km of
cable. It has to be stressed that the chances of stable operation with
72dB attenuation are somewhat finely balanced.
>Extending that cable run to our area would enable about a dozen
>houses to get ADSL.
It's near certain that 12 ADSL users would come nowhere near justifying
the capital expenditure involved. A figure of GBP30 per metre for new
cabling has been bandied about in ADSLguide recently - though without
much explanation or justification.
The cost of planning, sorting out wayleaves, trenching, duct work, cable
laying, testing and commissioning will not be cheap. Even if only 1km of
cable has to be run at GBP10 per metre, have you got a spare ten
thousand to pay BT?
BT will only lay new cable if you want to install something with rather
more substantial rental charges than ADSL (even ADSL 12 times over - I'm
thinking more about ISDN30e or a leased line) - and even then you'll be
charged excess construction costs once the relatively small construction
costs allowed in the connection charge of the product are passed.
>At the moment we cannot get any digital services
>whatsoever.
There's no universal service obligation for anything other than
telephony (which is basically voice and fax).
BT have now removed their policy limitations on ADSL - the policy now is
that they'll activate it, if it doesn't work they'll take what measures
they can with existing line plant to make it work, and only then will
they remove the ADSL and give up. This is rather an improvement over the
previous rules, where sometimes lines that would work were ruled out on
policy grounds.
However, this new policy doesn't remove the technological limitations:
excessive attenuation or too much noise on the line for ADSL to work.
There are always going to be places where it's uneconomic for BT to
provide ADSL service. BT are talking in terms of the extended reach
scheme, when combined with those exchanges currently enabled and the
exchanges that BT are planning to enable, increasing ADSL coverage to
about that of analogue TV. I can't think there's many incentives to go
much further. BT are amenable to being offered support to enable
exchanges currently deemed unviable, but when you're talking about
extensive new cabling that may only help a limited number of users, the
chances are that such measures will always be uneconomic.
Maybe in the future BT will themselves offer wireless based products -
supposedly they are going to experiment with WiMAX based technologies in
Northern Ireland.
For now, one option has already been mentioned - attempt to set up point
to point wireless to somewhere that is in range of ADSL.
Another option is satellite broadband (so long as latency isn't a
problem).
A third option is to settle for BT Midband / Highway / ISDN2e - assuming
that your line meets the limits for that.
A fourth option is to see if any of the wireless ISPs are interested
(unlikely if it's just a small pocket of potential users in a rural area
- the cost of the backhaul circuit - the sort of leased line that BT
would install to your kind of location, though at a cost - would make
offering service in such an area uneconomic).
David
--
David Wood
(E-Mail Removed)
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