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high speed broadband for madraHQ?
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madra (Administrator) 2010-02-17, 11:47 #1
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Subject: high speed broadband for madraHQ?
for the past week or so, there have been teams of workmen digging trenches along the pavements on streets near me, laying down fibre-optic cable.   this morning, when i got up, i found that the  cable was currently being laid on my street, about four feet from my front door.

there have been rumours in the past that manchester [or at least the part in the streets round the BBC's northern HQ, which is about a quarter of a mile from me] was going to see the roll-out of a fibre-optic network sometime soon.  but this is the first indication i've seen that it's actually happening.  apparently speeds of  'up to 100MB/s will be available'  :ohyeah:

[ linky 01, linky 02, linky 03, linky 04 ]

of course the next questions are:

  • does the fact the cable is passing my front door necessarily mean i'll be able to get the service?
  • how much is it going to cost?
  • how long after laying the cable is it all going to be up'n'running?

interesting times, anyway.

scene outside my front door this morning. by the time i nipped inside and found the camera, a bloke had come and raked a load of gravel over the interesting green tape spread across the bottom of the trench, which said 'caution fibre-optic cable beneath':
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i5m 2010-02-17, 14:15 #2
since Feb 2006 · 2110 posts · Location: Super Up North, UK
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Quote by madra:
speeds of  'up to 100MB/s will be available'  :

And I'll be stuck on 1Mb/s for the foreseeable future. Because even when the exchange gets upgraded to 21CN WBC, my distance from it isn't going to give me any real benefit.  :cry:
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Oisín 2010-02-18, 00:59 #3
since Feb 2006 · 1236 posts · Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
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I’m currently negotiating with a couple of fibre providers (on behalf of the student housing I live in/am chairman of) to have fibre-optics established to our place here. 100 Mbit up/down for every user, more or less, since we’ll be buying a 10 Gbit connection.

This stuff is pretty expensive, though.
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madra (Administrator) 2010-02-18, 01:05 #4
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Quote by Oisín:
...This stuff is pretty expensive, though.

i know.  i'm hoping this scheme in manchester is going to be subsidised somehow, so it's a decent price.  they willnae get many takers round this area if it's not, seeing as it's predominately populated by students and people in rented flats.
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Oisín 2010-02-18, 01:17 #5
since Feb 2006 · 1236 posts · Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
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Well, if it’s already being dug down now, that’s the biggest chunk of the price done with right there.

We’re having the optics dug down from another student housing building just three or four hundred metres away, and the price is still somewhere around £25,000, just for putting the stuff into the ground. Renting it afterwards is a whole ’nother bottle of fish.
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madra (Administrator) 2010-02-18, 08:13 #6
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the thing i dinnae get is how they run the fibre-optic to individual properties, after laying the main cable?
it's not like electrical cable, where you can just splice in a 'side shoot' off the main branch,is it?
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euphras 2010-02-20, 16:43 #7
since Feb 2006 · 1619 posts · Location: Gießen, Germany
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In reply to post #2
Quote by i5m on 2010-02-17, 14:15:
Quote by madra:
speeds of  'up to 100MB/s will be available'  :

And I'll be stuck on 1Mb/s for the foreseeable future. Because even when the exchange gets upgraded to 21CN WBC, my distance from it isn't going to give me any real benefit.  :cry:

Not THAT much faster over here. I´m stuck with about 3 Mbps. But i can get along with that.
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madra (Administrator) 2010-02-20, 18:09 #8
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my current package is  'up to 20Mb/s'.   my exchange can support 'up to 12Mb/s'.  most of the time i get somewhere between 3 and 5.


of course, as we all know,  the words 'up to' pretty much negate any statistic that follows them anyway. so it's all a bit meaningless.



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Gamoe 2010-02-26, 00:43 #9
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That's great, madra. Hopefully it's like the best first dates - fast and cheap.

Keep us updated.
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