more than 3km from your exchange

[fifty?ballz]

I just applied for 4MB internet, but was told
I can't have it because I'm "more than 3km from your exchange".

Is this true?

Can anything be done?

[Phelan]

As far as I know there is nothing that can be done until they upgrade the exchange or change the cabling - so you could have a long wait.
Or you could hope that they get that airborne broadband thing up and running.

In fact I can't even get broadband at home (currently in Sydney for a year) but upon my return I'll no doubt get this:
"Your exchange has ADSL broadband. However, the length of the telephone line between you and the exchange is too long for ADSL broadband. However, we are continuing to look for alternative technology solutions and will keep you updated with developments as they happen.

Thank you for your interest."

Which means I'm screwed! I hate BT.

[pscl227]

get yer self a dish, a data satelliete dish that is, i looked into it a while back and their are some companies that offer the service for not much more than standard braodband.

[DjSatansfury]

? Satalite is **** expensive and has crap uploads :S

[Pavey]

Out of interest who was the 4mb connection with and how much?
Luckily my exchange is about 8 doors away although i was told the exchange couldnt handle more than 2 mb connections itself.
Nick

[fifty?ballz]

I applied to Bulldog, Nildram, Plusnet & Pipex for the connection.

Up the road from me they have 4mb, can't I just get an engineer to put some
RFI filters on my line or something?

[Super Stu]

Ask BT?

...

[Fusion]

i'd like to know where exactly my exchange is. i know it's somewhere relatively nearby in the next district, as i get smashing speeds and consistency (sp?).

i realise they're not mapped for obvious reasons, but i'm curious.

[TS2Master]

We had to get 400 people in our area to sign an online form before they made one in our village. When we got to 400 names, they said they wanted 800. When we got to 800, they built one, and now we can get broadband here.

I presume its the same concept with 4Mb connection, but apart from that, the only solution would be to move house. Or do what my dad did and dug a long trench up his driveway and put the cable in and built his own little box that was near enough to the nearest connection station thingy and they got wired into that. I bet that didn't make sense at all!

[Super Stu]

No, it's the degredation of the signal, rather than a matter of updating the exchange. Seems UK broadband likes to sit on top of the exchange.

Fusion, if you're in the Mancs area, there's likely a few dotted about. They're obvious when you see them, with a grey exterior and no windows. Bit hard to describe sorry, heh.

There was a fantastic site on the BT intranet, would tell you absolutely everything about any exchange. Was on a server called Riker, if there are any BT employees kicking about here.

[Ginger Tosser]

I had the same query with BT, i asked a question and heres the reply

Dear Sir, Madam,

Thank you for your recent message about why we cannot deliver the 1Mbs and 2Mbs broadband connection over your line, which we received through the Have Your Say form at www.bt.com/broadband. We have been flooded with e-mails lately and while we cannot get back to everyone personally at present, we hope this e-mail will answer most of your queries.

The line limits for ADSL technology are based on whether the signal from the exchange to your property is strong enough to deliver a stable broadband service. If you put a signal down a cable, the signal will get weaker as the cable gets longer: this is referred to as line loss. For the 512Kbs connection, the line loss limit we have set is 60dB, but the higher speed services work over slightly different technology and are subject to stricter limits. We can only provide the 1Mbs and 2MBs connections to lines with a line loss of less than 41dB.

Typically, customers with lines longer than 3.5km are unlikely to be within this limit, but other factors also come into play, such as the amount of joints in your line and the type of cabling which is used to provide you with telephone service. The information on the checker is regularly updated to reflect the latest data on each telephone number and if it indicates that your line is outside the required limits, it will unfortunately not be possible to deliver these speeds of service to your address.

There are no direct plans at the moment to extend these limits. However, throughout the Summer we will be running trials to extend the reach of the ADSL 512Kbs connection and the results of these trials will also be used to assess whether the limits for the higher speed services may be increased.

If you have any further queries or comments as a result of this message, which have not been answered above, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected], or by replying to this e-mail.

Kind regards,

The Broadband Deployment Team
BT Wholesale

[fifty?ballz]

Bah oh well.