Broadband Cumbria

As far as Cumbria and Lancashire are concerned it is better to highlight the reasonably good areas, most of our counties are covered in notspots, too many to count probably. One of the things we have noticed in our 10 year campaign to get broadband is that we don’t show up on surveys, because the people in the notspots can’t register online. When folk do get online they get their mail and reply, they haven’t time to fill in surveys, and speed tests won’t work. Its a bit of a catch 22, the best way is just to draw a ring round an exchange. Anyone more than a couple of km from it is in a crapspot, and anyone further than around 7km is a notspot. In general this is due to old copper lines and even aluminum in some cases even those closer can’t get broadband. Another problem is the sheer quantity of areas on DACS, which give customers a phone line but can’t deliver broadband. If BT got public money I daresay they would remove the DACS and run more copper to places. This will cost them more than laying fibre, but would protect the monopoly and mean everyone has to stay on the old phone network. Its one trick to watch out for. If you see any digging going on get your fibre buried before they fill the hole in
Also if you see any sort of roadworks or digs, ask if you can bury some duct in the trench. You never know when it will come in handy. Record where it is on googlemaps and save the link…

Is your connection at the speed it should be is always the first question as a low speed test result could indicate a number of different problems other than just line length.

There have been several collections of notspot data, but if there is no will to do anything about them I see no point in adding to them or starting another. When someone has a solution they’ll find the notspots pretty easily. Satellite is of course pretty ubiquitous.