[ramon]

These are quotes from today;s BBC news:
Ofcom also said there was a digital divide in the UK between those with the latest technologies, and those without.
It has proposed that decent, affordable broadband should be a universal right.

The report, Making Communications Work for Everyone, says: "We will work with the UK Government to make decent, affordable broadband a universal right for every home and small business in the UK.
The universal right should start off at 10Mbits per second for everyone, and then rise in line with customer demand over time."

The report, Making Communications Work for Everyone, says: "We will work with the UK Government to make decent, affordable broadband a universal right for every home and small business in the UK.
"The universal right should start off at 10Mbits per second for everyone, and then rise in line with customer demand over time."


Many of you will live outside towns and villages and it would be interesting to know what broadband speeds can be obtained in rural areas.
It may be useful to give your general location: I am in Dumfries and Galloway. My broadband speed via telephone lines is 0Mb ( I do have satellite broadband)

Strangely different speed checkers give different data so maybe anyone interested could use this:

http://www.broadband.co.uk/broadband-speed-test/

[Marches Farmer]

0.8 t 1.2 Mb on a good day.....

[Bionic]

1.9M - Carmarthenshire

[Buttermilk]

Interesting I took the test on your link and it gave a result of 7.01mb but the blurb said I could get 5.5mb on my phone line.  The results were taken using my phone line.

[UPoneacre]

Ours varies from 3.8 to 5Mb, but after 7.00 in the evening it drops, and frequently drops out - typically 4 - 5 minutes on then off for maybe 10-12 minutes; makes a complete nonsense of 'connectivity'. That's probably better than some of our few neighbours can get here in mid Wales on an up country dead end road serving only a few farms and holdings. According to BT recently we're unlikely to see any signs of fibre or any other improvement here for several years.

[devonlad]

4.23 mb just now. Rubbish mostly tho seems others are worse. Rural mid devon

[Foobar]

Only 4-6MB here, and I live 6 miles from Cardiff.  They are currently in the process of putting in fibre (just as I'm about to move elsewhere!) - luckily our hamlet has its own cabinet - there are houses between us and the local exchange that get worse speeds (like <1MB) because of their distance from the exchange or a local repeater cabinet.

[member=30132]UPoneacre[/member] - I think if you get drop outs like that it is due to interference from some other device (and it could be anything, not even related to your property), and it's probably due to deterioration of the copper cables somewhere.  Openreach will help you but only if you can recreate the problem, i.e. you need to know exactly what causes it ... which is like finding a needle in a haystack.
(I used to work for the company that made the gear that BT install in street cabinets and exchanges)

This is a useful page: https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search  it will tell you where your local exchange is (so you can see how far away you are) and what services are available from it.  Lookup under the bt wholsale section - ADSL & ADSL Max are your standard broadband, and 21CN is fibre.  You can find charts online somewhere that show how broadband speeds drop depending on the distance from the exchange.

[Fleecewife]

Our broadband speed is fairly pathetic but things work so much better than a few years ago, when the connection would keep cutting out.  It turned out that a farm between here and the local town had electric fencing running down the roadside which was shorting to vegetation, and breaking our connection.  He only uses that field for arable now so the problem has gone - nice to have considerate neighbours 

[waterbuffalofarmer]

2-3mbps ceredigion. I have a terrible problem with Mbps, I am with Onebill Telecom and have been since last summer; They keep on capping our broadband and we have had so many problems with them, but I cannot get out of the contract till this summer, they are robbers and I strongly support anyone who does not go with them.

[crofterswife]

0.4mb as slow as dial up! Scottish Highlands.

[Carse Goodlifers]

2.84mb - Carse of Gowrie.

[shep53]

0.45mb   Loch Fyne  Argyll

[UPoneacre]

Goodness me - reading those speeds makes me feel quite well off!

Foobar - many thanks for that info/link - I'll have to look into that; it does seem strange that the problem starts at the same time every evening.

[Ghdp]

4.76 MB here . Great wealth of service it seems. Feels fairly useless most of the time and I use satellite.
Bring on the campaign for mains drains for all, tv signal for all, mains water for all, radio would be nice... Oh and mobile signal would be nice too!! Wouldn't swap where I live tho?

[trish.farm]

0.31 and I am close to Winchester and Southampton!!  Its has always been rubbish at my house, my phone line goes across the farm, up through an 80 acre wood and then to my house!!