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[burakkucat]

I managed to catch Walter, yesterday evening, just after the wheelbarrow had been parked in its stable, for the night.

Five months on from launch, the B4SH user-base has been steadily increasing, as advertisements and word-of-mouth spread the news. The area serviced is gradually expanding out from the initial launch site, at the Albury Estate, as fast as the volunteers are able to do so.

I understand that the wheelbarrow has now been equipped with an OTDR and words such as "bad splice", "back-scatter" & "insertion loss" have occasionally been heard when the device is used.

Rumour has it that Mrs. W wonders why Walter could not have chosen a cleaner retirement hobby - such as stamp collecting - rather than that which involves muddy trenches, joint chambers and crawling through undergrowth. 

[Weaver]

The good thing is that up here there is no undergrowth, only heather and the occasional mammal, buzzard, sparrowhawk and of course golden eagles. Deer ate all of Janet’s flowers at the from the other day (presumed by exclusion, as there were no sheep, cows or donkeys).

[burakkucat]

The good thing is that up here there is no undergrowth, only heather . . .

You would need volunteers adept in granite drilling and blasting. And that would be seriously messy. 

[Weaver]

Indeed. Openreach couldn’t be bothered with a lot of that in some places. Mind you, where it’s not rock it is peat and plenty of it. It’s where a friend of ours collects his peats. Most people don’t fancy the backbreaking work much any more.

[waltergmw]

Thank you for those nice words BKK !

When talking of terraine there are quite significant differences in parts of the UK. We grunted a bit going down the North Downs Escarpment in hard chalk and flint but now we're through into much kinder greensand which is often bright orange but also has the odd lump of heavier rusty coloured ironstone. Our Lancastrian counterparts can have a more challenging environment with a lot more rain so, as a consequence, theiy must contend with boulder clay etc and far wetter holes. Almost all our chambers are nearly bone dry so thankfully only a little mud in winter.

I hesitate before Kitz's illustrious technicians but perhaps the attached video might amuse a few.
I have still to get the typo removed and it would more accurately be titled as fibre preparation and cleaving rather than the actual fusing operation.

https://www.gigupanddown.net/2019/05/14/bringing-1-gig-service-to-albury-estate/

Perhaps I should also add that younger generations are very much more agile and faster with these operations often because their eye sight is better than mine.

Kind regards,
Walter

[niemand]

Well done, Walter. 

[burakkucat]

I hesitate before Kitz's illustrious technicians but perhaps the attached video might amuse a few.
I have still to get the typo removed and it would more accurately be titled as fibre preparation and cleaving rather than the actual fusing operation.

https://www.gigupanddown.net/2019/05/14/bringing-1-gig-service-to-albury-estate/

For those who would like the direct link to the YouTube video, here it is --

[youtube]Iu4zxsugoa0[/youtube]

[Weaver]

Superb.

[cyberdoyle]

Great stuff Walter, keep up the good work, love from everyone at #teamB4RN xxx 

[waltergmw]

The best reward from this labour of love is to watch new users astonishment at the results.
Seeing a web page appear almost instantaneously make some think I'm playing tricks with my computer.

Yet to us it's no longer any surprise with near-constant results wherever we happen to be.

Here are a selection from different installations:-

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/106710393

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/107083564

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/106663891

Even those with some familiarity have to look twice with ping test results like:-

--- bbc.co.uk ping statistics ---
40 packets transmitted, 40 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.656/1.805/3.385/0.258 ms

But my old habits die hard !
I winced when I saw one user disconnect the power lead just after we'd started the service but then I realised that I am no longer subject to the whims of the dreaded DLM logic !

[Ronski]

Very nice, and 1ms pings, with speeds like that presuming same connections both ends you could have an offsite backup that's like local storage.

[waltergmw]

One of the most common replies we get is that our service is more expensive than the current supplier's and "I can do my e-mails satisfactorily now".
It seems to indicate Joe Public hasn't, in general, woken up to the rapidly changing use of broadband.
Cloud back-ups is certainly another major difference that I all too frequently realise when I plug my laptop into a slower service it can lock up for several minutes as it synchronises with my Drop Box facilities.

Another is the quite astonishing almost 3D - like picture quality from e.g. Planet Earth using the BBC's UHD HDR and Hybrid Log-Gamma trials via iPlayer on a 4k TV screen, always assuming they can justify the expense of the wide screen TV.

[Weaver]

If you have several users at your home or workplace who are all trampling on one another then you will be really glad of the bandwidth. Or perhaps you won’t, not until you go to another site with an ordinary crappy slow connection and it then drives people mad. I think that that’s when lack of bandwidth, especially upstream makes the most difference to me, multiple use.

[waltergmw]

Perhaps the largest number of complaints we hear about from those on legacy twisted pair "solutions" comes from younger families with several teen-age children.

Those that can swallow 742 Mbytes of quick time movie by one such family might ask burakkucat to give them a drop-box link I've sent him.

[niemand]

Megabytes are so 2000s. Single video games are 100GB+.

The coffin dodger market is one, hopefully not too prevalent, professionals can munch the data; their kids can add a bit.

I hope you'll have the worst case scenario: the legitimate one of a home worker or two with teenage kids on one hand, the lonesome digital hermit trying to download the Internet of content they'll never actually use but just like to download and store on the other.