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Politicians' fury at BT's broadband excuses

By Barry Collins

Posted on 26 Jan 2010 at 14:23

Politicians in South Derbyshire are demanding answers from BT over the desperately slow broadband connections in the area.

Local councillors and MPs want to know why many homes and businesses are suffering from deplorably slow and unreliable connections, and why BT is seemingly doing little to resolve the problems.

An online survey conducted by residents in the South Derbyshire village of Hilton found that the majority of respondents had connections slower than 1Mbit/sec, with a quarter claiming to have actual speeds slower than 512Kbits/sec. A local primary school, meanwhile, has to make do with a connection that has a maximum speed of only 256Kbits/sec.

Nothing's changed in 18 months, nothing's going to change in five years

Amy Plenderleith, a councillor from South Derbyshire District Council, claims the situation is desperate for local residents and businesses. "We're getting small businesses not able to survive because they can't get reliable broadband," she told PC Pro. "It's so poor, especially at peak times, that it drops out completely."

Local Labour MP Mark Todd has also raised the issue in the House of Commons. "How acceptable is it that a village like Hilton in my constituency, which has a population of nearly 4,000, should have a speed that is too low to enable people to carry out any normal domestic activities?" he asked in a Parliamentary question tabled in November. "Its thriving business sector also struggles with a speed that is unacceptable. Is it not correct to take a tougher regulatory line with BT?"

BT summit

Plenderleith and Todd met with senior executives from BT at a meeting hosted by Lord Corbett at the Houses of Parliament last week, but the councillor was left unimpressed by what BT had to say.

"Nothing's changed in 18 months, nothing's going to change in five years," Plenderleith said in the aftermath of the meeting. "It's so demoralising when you can see what [BT] can do. Urban centres are going to get investment first - we're definitely in the last third."

Plenderleith says she's considering canvassing councils across the country to put further pressure on BT to improve broadband access in non-metropolitan areas. "Our situation must be replicated right across the country, thousands of times," she said.

Rural issue?

In a statement sent to PC Pro today, BT denied parts of the country were being neglected. "Almost all of BT's exchanges across the UK support broadband speeds of up to 8Mbits/sec, ensuring that rural areas in the UK enjoy a high level of broadband availability," it said. "This contrasts strongly with other countries where broadband roll-out has been focused on urban areas at the expense of rural communities.

"However we are aware that there are a number of homes in rural areas that receive slower broadband speeds as a result of being too far away from the exchange. We are in active discussions with the local authority in South Derbyshire to understand the broadband challenges they are facing and are investigating all possible options."

However, Plenderleith refutes the suggestion that South Derbyshire is a rural backwater. "We're one of the fastest growing districts in the country," she said, adding that companies such as Toyota, Rolls Royce and Egg were large employers in the area.

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User comments

Why does BT always get the blame?

BT always gets the flack for not investing in new infrastructure to provide better broadband, why do Virgin (cable) not get the same pressure?

By piccers on 26 Jan 2010

Virgin network

I live in Hilton and am one of those who currently only get 1Mbps connection speed. The point about Virgin is a good one. Virgin have a cable network 6 miles up the road in Derby. Seeing as BT can't provide fast access speeds without seemingly installing a new exchange in the village, Hilton would provide the ideal target for a Virgin cabled network. Imagine 1000 homes and businesses all with poor ADSL connections - they would snap up a cable connection!

By rogibson on 26 Jan 2010

Politicians don't understand the problem. Rural areas are thinly populated, so many people are a long way from their nearest telephone exchange. For ADSL, long distance = low speed.

It's not viable for every tiny hamlet to have it's own telephone exchange.

By Stiggy on 27 Jan 2010

The rural areas have always had the option of going it alone, and having a community ISP or a local business. It's not easy, but if the alternative is not to have broadband...

By Penguat on 27 Jan 2010

The Government sold BT off and squandered the proceeds. If they hadn't BT were about to put fibre to the kerb over 20 years ago to deliver broadband type services, like TV on demand. If they did it after the introduction of competition they would have had to give the capacity away to the benefit of the competition. This did not make commercial sense, hence it has not happened.

Yet another government *!$% up.

By eccles32 on 27 Jan 2010

I fully agree that not "every tiny hamlet" can have its own exchange, but Hilton isn't exactly what you would call small. It has one of the largest housing estates in the area (over 1000 houses) and supports international businesses on its multiple business parks. Surely that's enough to make BT/Virgin wake up and smell the coffee?

By rogibson on 27 Jan 2010

Me too...

Again, another Hilton resident. My speed is 0.3mb/s.

One point of contention is Hilton being described as a rural community. I do not agree with this. It's a bordering on a small town of around 5000 people that is within 6 miles of the Derby city boundary.

By Andy1967 on 27 Jan 2010

And other

Yet another Hilton resident. According to BT's own presentation at the House or Lords over 79% of Hilton's phone lines have broadband, higher than the UK average of 63%, yet BT says there isn't enough demand for an upgrade to Fibre. The whole Etwall exchange has around 3000 broadband connected homes and business ~73% broadband penetration. As there is no competition in the Exchange BT is receiving £300,000 per year, minimum at wholesale broadband prices. Hilton is a very compact area, so the cost of FTTC wouldn't be too expensive per user. BT has put the investment cost of its first 10m FTTC connections at around £150 each, so I don't see why it couldn't cover its cost of upgrading Hilton in the first 24 months. I would take the business connection at £45 per month, so they would be getting £1080 from me in the first 2 years. Even if the Hilton installation cost £300 per user, surely it could recoup it.

By adwoodrow on 29 Jan 2010

Confused

If I plug the primary school phone number into the line checker it says 3.5M which seems consistent with the distances involved. Is this 250k service down to the link speed to the exchange or to an overloaded exchange or an overloaded service provider ? What modem speeds do Hilton residents have ( *not* speed test results )

By yarwell on 1 Feb 2010

2.6 Mbps in Swadlincote

... and this is slow. I had Virgin broadband in Essex and the difference in download speed is staggering. Looks like no plans are afoot yet to improve things on the old BT lines suspended from telegraph poles. Simple things like online gaming are just out of reach. Businesses must be missing out hugely - imagine an engineering firm unable to share CAD data from a remote server at a customers site. We're forced to have Sky TV if you want anything other than Freeview - I'd jump at the chance of Virgin media. Come on Mr Branson.... get your act together

By 3door4x4 on 7 Mar 2011

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