Viper Rural

Rural Marketing III. Improving your Broadband Connection Speed

Author: Jim Hardcastle

Jim helps people plan and deliver effective communications. His background in the countryside sector provide him with a wealth of experience in rural marketing. Facilitation, fueled by coffee, with Post-Its at the ready, he’s here to help .

In the third instalment of our Rural Marketing blog we look at finding solutions to rural broadband connectivity. We spoke to Andy Moore from Pink Connect who advises customers on improving their connection speeds.

Andy, the focus for rural broadband connectivity at the moment seems to hinge on sub-regional Superfast Broadband projects. Much of this work seems to depend on laying fibre-optic cables. Surely there are other solutions? 

BT Openreach’s stated aim is to have 10 million premises hooked up to superfast broadband by 2012 and two thirds of UK premises connected by 2014 http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/connecting-communities/. The remaining third includes rural communities and businesses for which there is a £530m subsidy set aside to encourage network providers to connect superfast broadband.

For those businesses lucky enough to receive it, superfast broadband will represent the very best solution. However, despite the £530m fund, the reality is that superfast broadband just isn’t going to reach many rural office buildings. Given limited subsidies investment will inevitably get focused on areas where the largest volumes of businesses will benefit. Therefore, it will be many years, if ever, before fibre reaches some rural businesses needing superfast internet connections

Very often rural office parks are many km from their local telephone exchange and suffer very slow speeds as a result. One useful website to check what speeds an address is likely to receive is www.samknows.com. A postcode (and an onsite telephone number if available) is/are required.

The Connecting Devon and Somerset initiative has very tightly defined criteria for its Rural Connectivity programme. Do you really think these initiatives will get to the 'end of the lane'? Supposedly we're all going to have superfast fibre-optic connectivity by 2020. Rural businesses can't wait that long. 

The Rural Connectivity Programme is based around delivering satellite broadband to Devon and Somerset, but only to those premises receiving less than 2MB. Those businesses receiving a marginally higher speed would also really benefit from talking to a provider that understands broadband well and can advise them of the best path to take. (Editor's Note: the ‘Rural Connection’ project is a pilot satellite broadband project covering four defined rural areas in Somerset and Devon receiving less that 2mb, this is only one part of the broader Connecting Devon and Somerset initiative.)

The really great thing about satellite broadband is that it doesn’t matter where in the UK (or the lane) you are, the satellite is up there waiting for its fast connections to be used. All that is required is a clear view of the sky.

Talk us through using satellite for broadband. How much does it cost? What sort of upload and download speeds can be achieved?

Standard packages range from £29.95 up to £99.95 per month. For heavier business users there are a range of bigger use packages too. Download speeds of 10MB and upload speeds of 4MB can be provided. Unlike landline broadband these speeds are not “up to”, they are what the user can expect to receive anywhere in the UK.

A lot of rural businesses say upload is just as important as download. Why is this?

Upload speeds are speeds achieved going away from a user’s premises. These are important for those businesses who regularly need to send large files, use hosted email or perhaps need to upload data to a remote server. Satellite provides upload speeds four times that achieved from normal landline broadband.

Are there any other simple ways we can increase our broadband speeds in rural areas?

In the absence of fibre or for those occasions when satellite is not the best solution there are other alternatives to speed up rural broadband connections:

Simple housekeeping.

• Users should make sure that they use a good quality ADSL router, which very often is not the one supplied free from their broadband provider. A good quality router can often add as much as 1MB to the speeds received.

• Ensure that the ADSL router is plugged into the linebox (main Openreach socket) rather than extension wiring. Speed losses over extension wiring can often be as high as 2MB, which may not sound a lot, but if you’re only receiving 2.5Mb in the first place...!

   
• Consider a bonded connection. Businesses wanting higher speeds should ask their provider about a bonded broadband connection. This is where the provider can “bond” up to four connections together. The upload and download speeds then become the sum of the available speeds. E.g. 0.5MB upload and 4MB download would become 2MB upload and 16MB download. This is highly suitable for heavy broadband users.

   
• Mobile Broadband. If available 3G mobile broadband can provide some service, although usage caps are usually set quite low and coverage in rural areas is not that great. The much vaunted roll out of 4G may provide better fast mobile broadband coverage, but this is realistically a few years from most businesses and there must be a question mark over rural coverage given that the biggest rush will be to reach the majority of the population.

   
• Rather than relying on a single technology businesses should talk to a local, expert broadband provider who can advise objectively on a range of solutions rather than one offering only a single technology. They should seek a provider prepared to listen and one who will recommend the best options for each business depending upon its individual circumstances.
   

We're introducing the concept of cloud marketing - where appropriate messages can be sent to you according to your likes and location. To do this cloud computing is crucial. In your experience are people adapting their business to take advantage of cloud computing? 

Yes. More businesses understand that moving into the cloud makes things a whole lot easier and is more cost effective. Gone are the worries about having to back up the server, worrying about upgrades or integrating different technologies, which in many small businesses have built up over a period of time. More and more businesses are finding that adopting solutions like Google Mail and Google Drive is not only cost effective, but also makes collaborative working easier, meaning more can be achieved in less time. Business data is always backed up, is securely held and can be accessed anywhere from any device by whichever users are required to use that data. Until relatively recently this has been the domain of the big companies, but now thanks to advancing Cloud technology and faster broadband speeds this technology is within the reach of the smallest business.

Explanation. Broadband speeds depend upon two things:
The local telephone exchange. If the local telephone exchange has been enabled for fast broadband (ADSL2+ up to 24MB) that is a good first step. There is a programme of upgrading telephone exchanges to this technology, but it appears to be getting superseded by the Superfast broadband programme, These are focusing on upgrading local telephone exchanges to fibre to the cabinet working (FTTC). This gives download speeds of up to 80MB. Even some quite rural telephone exchanges are being upgraded.
Distance from telephone exchange. This is the critical element, particularly for broadband delivered solely using the local copper (or aluminium) telephone network. In general the further from the telephone exchange a premises is, the lower the available broadband speeds. FTTC involves laying new fibre cables to special green street cabinets which are then connected to existing copper cables for the short distance to customer premises, As the broadband only travels a short distance over copper wires the losses are much less and superfast speeds are possible.

Andy Moore is a Regional Director at Pink Connect, a leading independent business telecoms provider. A specialist in voice and data networking with over 20 years in the telecoms industry, Andy lives and works in North Somerset. 

- Posted on Wednesday 23 May 2012 at 13:21 by Jim Hardcastle

Tags: broadband (4), business (7), farm (1), mobile (3), rural (37), somerset (2)