Tag: rural Internet service

Article

German industry is poised to exploit rural broadband | PC World

My Comments

Other countries are having to work harder to even justify rural broadband but Germany is justifying and standing for a broadband standard of at least 50Mbps even in rural areas. This was something that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had called for in her opening speech at CEBIt 2015 in Hannover.

Here. the goal was about using broadband as a tool to benefit the tradition-driven farming and forestry industries that exist in the country’s rural areas. This is although Germany is pushing the VDSL2 barrow for their next-generation broadband technology but could use “fibre to the remote node” with VDSL2 and ADSL2 to push real broadband to rural households or to serve 4G or newer mobile-broadband service to these areas.

The main benefit was to allow farmers and forestry workers to implement computer-driven analytics rather than tradition and “rough-gauging” to their tasks in order to gain better harvests. SAP were premiering a “field analytics” service which covers the lifecycle of a farmer’s crop, recommending when to start the various tasks associated with that crop. This allows dates for these tasks to be factored in by the farmer or seed merchant. As well, weather reports for that area can be used to vary when to start a particular task.

The SAP service also has the ability for the farmer to share out data with contractors on an “as-needed” basis thus honouring Germany’s strict data-protection laws. At the moment, it is a proof-of-concept service but it was realised that this kind of service can benefit from real broadband being available to rural areas.

Other beneficiaries included Claas who offered a sensor-equipped tractor along with Fovea who offered a surveying app for forestry workers.

Here it is not just about personal entertainment or general office communication that would benefit the rural community when real broadband arrives. It is also about using the “fat pipes” that this technology provides to exchange data with various analytics services to obtain the right crop yield.

Articles

B4YS Start Rural FTTH Broadband Rollout for Yealand, Silverdale and Storth | ISPReview

B4RN brings fibre to B4YS country | ThinkBroadband

From the horse’s mouth

B4YS

Home Page

My Comments

Real broadband is coming to some parts of rural Yorkshire sooner than you think. Here, the B4RN group who established fibre-optic Internet in some parts of rural Lancashire have cut in to the large Yorkshire county, especially Yealand, Silverdale and Storth because these villages abut Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Here, the B4RN community-funded Internet group have turned the soil for the fibre-optic links and have achieved Stage One funding of GBP£101,000 without need for any state aid. This capital is to establish the core network. This is achieved through shares being sold to local residents and local businesses offering to lend capital to the effort and landowners offering labour towards the effort.

They are using a low-impact mole plough so that the land that the fibre-optic connections pass through isn’t disturbed heavily. Use of private land is totally with the landowner’s permission as it should be and there is encouragement for landowners to help with the work of installing the fibre-optic cable.

They intend to have the first premises connected sometime this year but there have been issues of this requiring the second-stage funding of a similar amount and B4YS are building up that capital. Users benefit from a Gigabit-throughput unlimited broadband service for £30 per month VAT inclusive and a one-off connection fee of £150.

If the B4YS project takes off well when it comes to connections, this could be a chance for this chapter of the B4RN project to work outwards and service more of the North Yorkshire villages, thus creating a force for real broadband Internet in the rural communities there.

But what is being allowed for here in the UK is for local communities and small businesses to deploy fibre-optic broadband to serve these small communities to allow them to benefit from real broadband Internet. This is alongside the BT Openreach service who are establishing fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband Internet in most of the UK and is a way to use competitive services to achieve the same goal.

Articles (German language / Deutsche Sprache)

Telekom will für Breitband-Aufbau Kabelanbieter kaufen | Gizmodo.de

Breitband-Ausbau wird zweistelligen Milliardenbetrag kosten | Der Spiegel

My Comments

Deutsche Telekom has been raising concern about assuring that the whole of Germany has access to decent-standard broadband Internet and have been interested in buying in to smaller cable-broadband services in that country to achieve that goal.

But are they the entity who has to carry the burden for rural broadband service, which requires huge investments? This is although they have been previously the government-run monopoly telecommunications operator for Germany.

Here, they were having to need EUR€10 billion to get a broadband service of at least 50Mbps over 90% of Germany with them needing to cover the remote areas which represents 10% for another EUR€15 billion. They also raised the issue of competing services needing federal money to achieve this same goal.

I see a reality where no other government or public-private entity is putting their hand up to provide rural broadband in that country. Germany’s political layout with the individual States (Bundesländer), especially the “Area States” (Flächeländer) could put themselves in a better position if the States (Baden-Württenburg, Bavaria, Lower Saxony, North-Rhine-Westphalia and co) or subordinate government divisions could underpin the works needed to be done.

This is something that has taken place in some other European countries like the UK and France where local or regional governments put their hand in their pocket for broadband enrichment projects in their territories. This is with a view to seeing investment take place for their areas with a view to attracting major employers like research, education or technology to their areas or to see their local economy on a level or better playing field with other areas.

Similarly, allowing for a truly competitive environment for Internet service where there isn’t favouritism for existing carriers may also be a chance for the other carriers to invest more in to Germany and see all of the nation covered with real broadband.

Article

PM David Cameron Switches On Gigaclear’s 1Gbps Broadband in Northmoor | ISPReview.co.uk

From the horse’s mouth

Gigaclear

Press Release

Northmoor community page

My Comments

Another rural neighbourhood in West Oxfordshire has been enabled for Gigabit fibre broadhand courtesy of Gigaclear. This time, it is Northmoor where the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, officially switched on the new fibre-to-the-premises service which covers 500 premises in Northmoor, Moreton and Bablockhythe.

This is a non-BT scheme that is funded by DEFRA as part of a GBP£20m Rural Community Broadband Fund where there is financial assistance from the EU. This public-private project underwent a proper procurement procedure with Gigaclear being the winner of the contract.

Here, it was proven that the fibre-to-the-premises deal had a higher throughput and was more stable than the 80Mbps fibre-to-the-cabinet deal offered by BT.

But Gigaclear offers this service at GBP£37 per month for a 50Mbps to GBP£69 per month for a Gigabit connection, both with “clean feed” parental controls and a Gigabit hub. They also charge GBP£100 for installation. The users benefit form the connection being symmetric for both uploads and downloads along with not needing to pay for BT phone-line rental to have the Internet service.

The Gigaclear PR ran with a comment about a person who was working from home in the neighbourhood but having to go to London to transfer large multimedia files due to the woefully slow connection that existed before. But he is able to stay working in that area and transfer the multimedia very quickly. I also see this benefitting others who think of the country as a place to live or work because of the increase in online services that is taking place.

This is something that shows up that villages in some of the Home Counties could be appealing as places to move to for working from home or for that proverbial “tree-change” as they become wired up for real broadband, especially next-generation broadband.

Article

Shropshire UK Moots Ultrafast FTTH Broadband Alternative to BT FTTC | ISPReview UK

My Comments

There has already been some action in the Home Counties when it comes to providing rural communities with full-fibre broadband courtesy of Gigaclear. But a proposal has been put up for another provider to provide a whole county in the UK with fibre-to-the-premises broadband with involvement from its local government.

The Shropshire County Counccil previously warned that they could ’t cover Shropshire with next generation broadband if they went the BT Openreach fibre-to-the-cabinet way which was based on VDSL2 for the copper run. But they have approached a rival provider to provide a “fibre-to-the-premises” service at a cheaper rate than the BT FTTC solution.

This would be inherently a public-private project with private investors where they could prove that they could even cover Shropshire’s rural properties with full-fibre technology. Readers who are in the USA or Australia may find this fanciful but the UK have rural properties that are relatively smaller than what is seen as common in these countries with a lot of small villages scattered around the country being the norm for the UK.

It will be initially a two-stage effort with a fibre-wireless effort with fixed-wireless technology in some areas but will evolve to a full-fibre technology in all areas. There is also the ability for a local village to pitch their own funding to go fibre all the way rather than a fixed wireless solution in Phase 1.

A good issue to raise with these community-focused developments assisted by other companies is whether they will give BT Openreach a “kick in the pants” to provide next-generation broadband at a more cost-effective price point. It also relate this to other markets like Australia, it could raise the issue of having competing providers working alongside local government to achieve the same goal.

As well, could this allow for the start of a competitive market when it comes to the provision of next-generation broadband in urban, peri-urban and rural areas.

Article

Gigaclear starts installation of its network for Underriver in Kent | ThinkBroadband

From the horse’s mouth

Gigaclear

Press Release

Product Page – Underriver

My Comments

Underriver, a small affluent village just on the southwest of Sevenoaks in Kent has now started working towards a fibre-based Gigabit next-generation broadband service courtesy of Gigaclear. Like other Gigaclear projects and similar projects, it is more about achieving a value-priced real broadband service to the small towns and villages around the UK.

There is a goal to have the service pass 2000 homes and businesses and is to provide a symmetrical Gigabit broadband service which would please a lot of small businesses, professionals working from home or intending to do so and people who have long-distance relationships. This is because the upload speed is as quick as the download speed which would satisfy cloud-computing needs, online storage, Web content creation, VoIP amongst other needs.

Of course, one of these “fibre-to-the-door” deployments is considered a value-added feature for a premises that is being sold or rented out at a later time. This was something I touched on when RightMove were adding this factor to what their customers were searching on when they were seeking out property to buy.

Who knows what other villages and small towns in the “Garden Of England” could duplicate what is happening up in Underriver?

I have covered the issue of substandard and unreliable fixed-broadband Internet connections in rural and outer-urban areas on HomeNetworking01.info before, based on experience with people who have had this kind of situation occur to them.

In these situations, a customer may find that they have very reduced bandwidth especially abnormally low bandwidth. On the other hand, the Internet connection becomes increasingly unreliable with it dropping out or taking too long to establish. The latter situation may be typically in the form of the SYNC or LINK light flashing or off or, in some cases this light glows and the INTERNET or CONNECTION light flashes, indicating Internet connection trouble.

For some home users who use the Internet for personal use, it is so easy to give up on the service due to this unreliability. But you shouldn’t simply give up on this service.

What you can do

Here, you contact the ISP’s or telecommunication company’s customer-service department preferably by phone and report this fault. Even if it “comes good”, it is worth keeping the ISP’s customer service “in the loop” about when the service comes good or not.

Keeping a record of when the failures or inconsistencies in the Internet service’s performance occurs may also help the ISP has a fair idea of what was going on. This is important with ADSL services and similar services where another company like an incumbent telco manages the infrastructure. It also is a way of identifying if a failure or substandard performance occurred in conjunction with particular weather conditions such as rainfall, which gives the game away with failing connections between the exchange and your premises.

As well, identify where the point of demarcation for your service is, which delineates where the service provider’s point of responsibility is when providing the service. In most ADSL services, the first telephone socket which may be in the hall or kitchen; or the provider-supplied splitter may be the point of demarcation. Here, you can know if the failure was with equipment and accessories you own or not.

If your hear your neighbours moan about substandard broadband Internet performance, ask them to join forces with you and keep a record of when they were affected. This could be a situation concerning the old or decrepit infrastructure. Other stakeholders that are worth talking to are shopkeepers and other small business owners whom you deal with because they may be facing similar problems.

The issue that typically occurs with ADSL providers is that they blame the customer’s equipment because they find that the modem at their end is still good. They don’t realise that the infrastructure between the exchange and the customer’s premises may be at fault. This typically is where the service is “good enough” for voice telephony but will not perform for ADSL broadband Internet as highlighted in the article. Here, you may have to draw this to your ISP’s customer service department that they need to pay attention to this wiring.

As I have mentioned before in the article, the situation that commonly plagues the telephone wiring infrastructure in rural and outer-urban areas is that there is a lot of old and decrepit infrastructure in these areas. When ADSL is provided in these areas, the work may be just done at the exchange as the DSLAM modems are installed in the exchange. But the infrastructure isn’t assessed properly for points of failure as part of the installation in normal circumstances. Similarly, the telephony infrastructure may not be upgraded when the town becomes enveloped in a metropolis.

Further action

This may only occur for a town’s business area or if a major employer sets up shop in the neighbourhood. It would also happen for services affected by a disaster evebt or by damage that affects a particular line like a tree falling across that line. But this activity should be a chance for all telephone customers in the town to have their lines assessed for proper ADSL service whether they are starting broadband service using that technology or not.