I live in Whittington Close, where my wife and I have had to put up with slow, unreliable broaband since we moved here in 2004. The maximum available on our phone line is 512 kbps and it keeps dropping out when the weather changes or when someone phones us up.
We discovered that most of the Sundorne Grove estate is connected to the local Harlescott exchange, roughly one mile away, close to the site of the new Tesco's. BT's website says that people in streets slightly north of us on the estate who are connected to Harlescott exchange can expect to get at least 4.5 Mbps from their broadband, usually more.
But Whittington Close, Overton Close, Holgate Drive, Northside Close and Quatford Close are connected to the Town Walls exchange in the middle of town, over 3 times as far away! Residents here can expect only around 1 Mbps or less!
When we complained to BT over the phone and asked them to connect us to the closer exchange, they refused - saying that it wasn't BT policy to let you choose your exchange! The last time I spoke to BT was last Friday, 19th January 2007!
I think we're only on Town Walls exchange because our part of the estate was built first, around 1972, and the rest of the estate was built a few years later. I don't think there's any major technical reason why we can't be connected to the closer exchange.
So I have now written to our MP, Daniel Kawczynski (who has already written back to me to say he is on the case) and designed a leaflet to let local residents know what's going on, and a petition to BT to get them to move our phones to the closer Harlescott exchange, which several people on the estate have already signed. This is going to be sent to the Chief Executive of BT, BT's complaints department, Ofcom, and the two local phone exchanges on Monday, and copied to our MP.
I've already contacted the Shropshire Star, who should be publishing an article in Monday's edition, and am considering radio and TV coverage (e.g. BBC Watchdog, BBC Midlands Inside Out) and the national press if BT still refuse to connect us to the Harlescott exchange and leave us with a slow, unreliable connection.
Richard Mills
Hi Richard,
Thats interesting as I'm closer to town than you yet I'm on the Harlescott exchange, back I think in the early 90's we swapped from a 01743 3 (Shrewsbury exchange) to a 01743 4 (Harlescott echange) number.
Having run the campaign back in 2002 to get the Harlescott exchange broadband enabled I wish you luck with trying to get the lines in your street swapped over.
It would be possible but costly so BT may hold back but keep pushing. With more and more people using broadband for everything from work, making phone calls via VOIP to shopping and in the next couple of years watching TV 512k is not near good enough.
Chris.
Thanks Chris
It's been great to get so much local support already; virtually everyone I have spoken to so far has been in favour of the campaign to get the phone lines moved to Harlescott.
It's not just the fact that it's only 512 kbps though - it's the unreliability that's really irked us. A few days ago, our broadband was down for over a day - and we tried everything to get it to come back - including swapping the micro filters over, unplugging everything, plugging it back in again, rebooting the modem and router, making both outgoing and incoming phone calls - but nothing would get it to connect again!
That was especially frustrating for my wife, who is disabled, and uses the Internet a lot, particularly when I am away at work.
Intermittent broadband is a regular occurrence for us though - the connection plays up at least a few times most months.
And finding out that people just a few streets away can get 4.5 Mbps or more has really rubbed salt into the wounds!
Cheers
Richard
Here's a bit more info:
http://www.btdigitaldivide.co.uk/ and
http://www.btdigitaldivide.org.uk/ (both go to the same website).
They're hosted from a Linux box connected to the end of my (slow) broadband so if the pages take an eternity to load (or fail to even load at all), then you'll know why...
Richard