UKC

Hi, time to tap some collective knowledge.

I work for myself and all I need is very fast broadband. But it has to be fast and, crucially, reliable (ideally fibre optic.)
Contemplating a few changes and there is no reason I shouldn't live somewhere with a great view, access to rock, and a low cost of living as long as I have the above.

I don't trust 'speed maps' one bit.

Any suggestions with accurate knowledge or experience greatly appreciated. Anywhere in the UK as a starting point.

Cheers and thanks in advance. E.

The rural areas at the back of Lancaster and out towards Sedburgh have laid their own fibre optic networks and have 1000Mbps as standard.

The community company is called B4RN.

In reply to ClimberEd:

When you say "fibre optic" do you mean a leased line (i.e. genuine fibre with symetric performance (e.g. 100 MBps down and 100 MBps up) or are you referring to high performance residential broadband services (i.e. copper (BT and other providers) or coax (Virgin Media) based with asymmetric performance i.e. 70 mbps down and 10 mbps up).

Reason for the question is if the former it massively restricts you choice of location outside of major cities, if the later then either selecting a home on-net for Virgin Media (check via their website, but unusual to find outside major towns) or using a website like Sam Knows to confirm fibre to the cabinet (i.e. BT Infinity, Sky 'Fibre') availability and performance is the way forward to work out areas.

In reply to ClimberEd:

Give Openreach a call/email. They should be able to supply a current map - and indicate where is ongoing.

We are having our rural area completed at the moment. There is a deadline for areas and lots of them are getting fibre in right at this moment. An area that might not be marked - might have fibre very soon.

I'm borders north of Carlisle.

In reply to Bellie:

"Give Openreach a call/email"

Might be tricky since they don't talk to the general public (only to Sky, TalkTalk, BT Retail and other service providers who are their customers). However as per other e-mail you can check FTTC deployment here:

https://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/when-can-i-get-fibre.aspx

https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/

You then need to work out how far the property is from the cabinet to get a view of likely performance (unfortunately network is not installed as crow flies or even down street edges but its a good proxy). FOr example I get 40 Mbps on a upto 72 MBps product (higher frequency than 52 Mbps product) and am c.600m from the cabinet. If you have a phone number you may be able to get a more accurate view from the BT Retail/TalkTalk/Sky websites.

In reply to ClimberEd:

Just to add it would be useful to understand your bandwidth requirements more, what kind of speed do you need for downlink/uplink for your business in term of Mbps?

In reply to jonfun21:

They've spoken to me But I had a proper contact email for the guy who had done a site inspection, not an address at the front end so to speak : )

Happy to ask and see if they have a coverage map for rural fibre if it helps OP.

In reply to jonfun21:


I guess 40 or 50mps is all that is required, as long as it is reliable.
By fibre optic I mean BT infinity or the equivalent, I don't need my own dedicated line. I know the distance from the cabinet can be really important.

I'll have a look at some of the roll out plans that people have suggested.

Thanks all.

In reply to ClimberEd:

Great, the Openreach fibre map is useful in this regard:

https://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/when-can-i-get-fibre.aspx

Having had both Virgin Media and BT Openreach based products I would say the VM products are better at giving you what you pay for (i.e. 50 Mbps service = c.50 Mbps downlink) but that uplink performance has been better/more reliable on the BT Infinity service. However VM is unlikely to be available in a rural location.

As someone else has mentioned look out for local community schemes as their are some great ones out their, albeit few and far between.

In reply to ClimberEd:

If reliability is absolutely critical get both BT and Virgin. I work with a few people who do this.

In reply to Jim Lancs:

One of my relatives is on that system. He says it's great.

In reply to snoop6060 & jonfun21

Thank you both, really useful.

In reply to ClimberEd:
I live about ten mins walk from Black Rocks in Derbyshire and had issues for years with internet speeds, we now have BT Inifinity( a few years ) and I get between 35-75mbs. rarely get any downtime and when it does its usually only for around five mins unitll it reboots. There was also a company I used for many years who did well untill BT got better with their BB. http://www.w3z.co.uk

In reply to ClimberEd:

You could have a look at areas covered by companies like Gigaclear who install fibre in more out of the way places as part of a government scheme to improve rural broadband. They offer 1gb/s near us and are apparently testing 5gb/s, we haven't got any good rock in rural Berkshire though!

In reply to ClimberEd:

I've yet to experience how fast it is, but the guy who farms the land my house is on says that he is linked up with this;

http://www.superfastcornwall.org/