Hi folks - apologies if this post is a little wayward but I'm looking for some advice from you geniuses on what I may be able to do to improve our connection speed at our property.
Let me tell you a story.
We moved into our house a couple of years ago in the middle of a high density residential neighbourhood in one of the UK's largest urban areas. A cursory check seemed to suggest that we were able to get fibre to the cabinet, but that proved to be incorrect after we moved (and I managed a successful takedown on the offending ISP marketing team via the Advertising Standards Authority). We set up an ADSL contract with BT and had speeds of 6-8mb/s for a year or so before the line presumably developed some kind of fault as our speeds plummeted to basically unusable rates (<2mb/s down, <0.2mb/s up). BT were unable to fix the fault despite (apparently) repeatedly trying and claiming it was fixed, so we got out of that contract and have been using an unlimited 4G plan since.
Our 4G coverage will tend to give 7-10mb/s down and weirdly anywhere from 3-15mb/s up. Nothing to write home about but an improvement - however we have been experiencing an increasing number of dropouts and coverage issues so this isn't an ideal set up for us longterm.
Throughout all of this I have been in an endless dialogue with OpenReach to try and establish why we don't have fibre to our cabinet and why we're not in their plans for further fibre network improvements, despite properties just a few doors down and the vast majority of our neighbourhood benefiting from FTTC. I have repeatedly submitted OR 'Community Leads Portal' requests to see if we can fund the work ourselves and have only recently received a quote back for £14,000 for fibre to the
property; not strictly what I am requesting. Ironically we have been assigned a 'Rural Engagement Officer' from OR, despite living in the middle of a large town with fibre in touching distance. I have spoken to BT regarding the broadband universal service (
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/broadband-uso-need-to-know) but again they are basically unwilling to help.
I have even spoken with our MP who says he will "have a word" with BT; but that is also presumably into the void.
You may think I am being precious and that there are plenty of other UK residents in similar or worse positions than us. But our connection is affecting our ability to work from home let alone function as a modern household and is a constant headache for me personally. We are considering moving!
So what I am requesting (aside from an opportunity to vent - thanks for reading!) is any tips or advice on what I can do. Is there anything I can do to put pressure on OR to include our cabinet in their rollout plans? Any help or sympathy welcome.
