Ian Griffiths

For those of you who don't know BT are now accepting pre-registrations for Broadband, and they'll convert exchanges when interest reaches a 'trigger level' and 75% (ish?) of those registrations are converted in to solid sales.

I'm running my own campaign for the Lark Lane area of Liverpool - http://www.larklanebroadband.com/

There's also info here should you wish to find out more about your own exchange.

Rusty Festa

Clickable

boxst

Hello

As we are here....

Edenbridge as well: http://www.GetEdenbridgeBroadband.co.uk

Steve.

Jeff Wiltshire

as are Paddock Wood

http://www.broadband4paddockwood.tk



Jeff

Geezer

You'll find that the levels for small to medium sized exchanges are set unrealistically high, I'm afraid. This is so BT do not have to bother with them while they upgrade all the exchanges where they will get a quick return.

The problem is that most normal people don't really understand what broadband is, or what benefits it gives them. Most just see a price hike from £15.99 ish a month to £30 a month for a access to the internet. If you are gaming or trying to look at streaming video, then broadband is great, but most home users don't do that sort of thing. Why double your subscription?

It makes better sense for BT to leave the smaller exchanges alone because the percentage of people who will actually take up broadband at the current price is very small. They probably make more from people on telephone connections because most of the subscribers will not take up broadband, and it ain't cheap to install.

It stinks, but there it is.

Geezer

boxst

Hello Geezer...

Well, I'm trying! Attending all meetings of residents, distributing leaflets... and I have 80 out of 350.

So I'm not going to give up yet!

Steve.

boomer

It was in today's papers that the bit of BT that gathers the number of potential ADSL subscribers cannot (according to Oftel rules) tell the bit that puts the lines in, or third party ISPs who may wish to deliver the service, about the demand

Oh, and the trigger point is several hundred subscribers per exchange. Kinda screws the 50-1 contention ration eh???

Maybe Home Highway is the way to go

mb

Jeff Wiltshire

Why does this effect the contention ratio ?

If I have 50 broadband users my backhaul from the exchange (assuming home users on 512K) would be a 512Kbps lease line, if I have 500 users then its a 5Mbps circuit.....and so on.


Jeff

boxst

Hello Boomer

That can't be true: All participating ISP's have access to BT's internal pre-registration database, as in fact does everybody else via the "barometer" thing on BT's page for each exchange.

Steve

Rusty Festa

We (Business only ISP) submit the phone number and postcode to BT through an online tool called FastProbe. I assume Boomer means that the division of BT that records this info is not allowed to diclose the phone numbers to BT Openworld or other ISPs as this would give them an unfair advantage when it comes to converting the interest into a sale.

It's already been said but to repeat: Once an exchange has reached it's pre-reg target 75% of the registered interst must be converted into sales before BT will actually convert the exchange.

Jon

Edited for Ps. We do not have access to anyone else's data so if you look at ADSL guide and an exchange has 200 interests registered, we can not see that x% belong to BT Openworld, etc

[Edited by Rusty Festa - 8/24/2002 9:40:25 AM]

boomer

Jeff,

my point about the contention ratio is that if it takes a few hundred subscribers to justify converting an exchange, then each 512k worth of bandwidth will immediately have it's 50 users in place. 512k divided by 50 (worst case) is a pretty slow connection

Now if i could be the only subscriber to an ADSL enabled exchange - that would be nice

mb

Rusty Festa

Boomer,

Do you constantly download data from the Internet? Most people tap in a URL then once the page has downloaded they stop downloading data whilst they read it therefore even at 50:1 download speeds are stil 6-8 times faster than a 56k modem

Yes, I agree, if everyone is downloading MP3's at the same time then contention will come into play but then you have to consider other factors such as the bandwidth of the Leased Line the MP3 server is on the other end of. Talking of Leased Lines, if you want a true uncontended service...

Jon

Jeff Wiltshire

All Internet connections are contended somewhere.....even lease-lines


Jeff

what would scooby do

BT are so STOOPID - my house is wired to an exchange 13Km away - even though my nearest exchange is within the 5km boundary for ADSL - no chance for broadband for me then !!! HUH

I got NTL cable to my door but they are even worse than BT - they can't afford to connect Milton Keynes up. I hope they do go bust this year - maybe then the next franchisee will do something positive