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Re: [LUG] Possible solution for faster broadband to rural areas

 

 On 28/07/2010 13:13, Gordon Henderson wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jul 2010, Rob Beard wrote:

Hi folks,

Not sure if anyone has seen this at all?

http://tinyurl.com/26dpxoc

Basically Virgin Media and Surf Telecoms are trialling stringing fibre across Western Power Distribution power line poles.

According to Western Power Distribution, they supply power to 2.5 million homes in the South West England and South and West Wales.

Okay fair enough it's possibly not going to reach everyone (not sure if there are any rural properties who get electricity by other means) but maybe if it's successful it'll give folks other options for faster broadband.

Surf/WP have been building up a fibre network for some time now. 8 years ago I used them to run 10Mb connections from exeter (sowton) to a location in Devon (Marldon), and 2 in Cornwall (Lands end and Cambourne)

It's good that a commercial ISP is now using their network though - however, as alway it's the "last mile" that's going to be the biggest problem. We used Wi-Fi and more expensive kit at the time...

Gordon


Yeah I guess some rural properties might still be a couple of miles away from a cabinet. I'd be interested to know if they'll run fibre to say a village centre and then unbundle a cabinet (bit like what they're doing in Saltash) and maybe supply wireless to maybe the odd few properties who are a bit too far away.

Rob

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