To Infinity and Beyond: We Hit the Number 1 Slot

Imagine my surprise when I checked the BT Infinity website last night. It's a bit like checking your lottery tickets. You know the odds of winning are 14 million to 1 against, but every Wednesday and Saturday, you have a few brief minutes of hope and anticipation before being let down yet again.

Infinity is a bit like the lottery in slow-motion - in other words like our broadband service! Everything happens a bit at a time! If you are really luck, it happens a kilobit at a time and we can but dream of a Megabit at a time. Ooops, I'm rambling again...

This morning, I checked the Infinity website and realised our local exchange in Shrewton was in first place. It was the Infinity equivalent of matching the first number drawn - not a win, but an encouragement. I sang, I danced, I fired off an email to Ian Livingston, the CEO of BT:

I trust you are well. It has been a while since I last e-mailed you regarding the poor broadband in Winterbourne Stoke, but we have been busy in the background and have set up Stonehenge Broadband, a community group, to look at alternative ways of bringing ultrafast (up to 50Mbps symmetrical DSL) to our village and others in the vicinity of Salisbury Plain. We are shortly to engage in a wider consultation exercise with local councils and communities in the Salisbury Plain area to improve the long-term viability of a community based scheme.

Clearly, that approach will cost money and so we couldn't ignore the BT Infinity competition to bring super-fast broadband (up to 40Mbps download, 10Mbps upload - asymmetrical DSL) to 5 communities in the UK that would, perhaps, have fallen into the "final-third" - those communities that BT would deem uneconomical to extend fibre to. BT's Infinity may not be the best broadband that is available in the UK, but for 5 lucky communities who have exchanges with more than 1000 subscribers, it could be achievable at no extra cost. We'd be daft not to try and win it - but it's a great shame that the most remote communities, those on exchanges of fewer than 1000 subscribers, aren't eligible. OK, they can express an interest, but I'm surprised you need yet another survey to tell you that small rural communities see broadband as vital to their future. Perhaps this really suggests that a UK broadband network based on existing exchange structures is outmoded, unsustainable and increasingly irrelevant?

Like many rural communities, we'll play along with the Infinity game - whilst continuing with other efforts that might have a better prospect of succeeding. However, after looking at the BT Infinity website last night, I couldn't resist writing to you. Shrewton, our local exchange, was number 1 in the country when it came to the percentage of subscribers registering on the BT Infinity website (see below). Aren't percentages wonderful!

Of course, the numbers game with this competition is stacked very firmly in favour of the larger exchanges, as they will have an easier job of finding the minimum of 1000 subscribers to be in with a real chance of being in the final top 5. With only 1182 subscribers on the Shrewton exchange, we will have to recruit almost 85% of them to the cause, if we are to reach the 1000 subscriber total. Actually, we'll have to do even better than that because of another twist in the rules which allows you to register an address only once. Of course many rural businesses operate from the owners home and so they have the choice of registering either their business line, or their domestic line, but can't do both.

Still, we can have some fun trying to win and it will raise the profile of Stonehenge Broadband and our efforts.

One thing still puzzles me (not really -it's all fairly transparent) with regard to Infinity, Ian. During the Digital Britain debate, you were adamant that a 2Mbps broadband USO was all that was required in the UK. I suspect BT's position influenced the last government's recommendations for Digital Britain. The volte face with Infinity surprises me - if 2Mbps will be adequate for us country folk in seven years time, why all the fuss about Infinity now? That would make an interesting public debate.

With regards from the depths of the digital divide

Now to be fair, Mr Livingstone responded to this email. In fact he responded very rapidly indeed, as follows:

I am glad to hear of your enthusiasm for BT Infinity.

You might also note the recent announcement in Cornwall showing what public and private partnerships can do as well as places like Iwade.

You misrepresent our views on 2MB. There is a big difference between a minimum standard that will at least allow a functional internet and video service and our aims to drive fibre as far across the UK as possible. Our plans represent one of the biggest private sector investment in fibre in the world available on a fair and equal basis to any CP. That is what we are aiming for and putting our money behind it.

It is of course easy to criticise what isn't being done rather than to comment on all the things that are.

OK, I was labouring the points - but only a wee bit. I'll have to respond to point out that:

I have boundless enthusiasm for FTTH and will only enthuse about Infinity when I have it connected and it works.

As for the 2Mb - I did say it was a 2 Mb UOS - which is a minimum standard - hard to see how that misrepresents a minimum standard. In any event, anyone with any vision is more lkely to view 40 Mbps ADSL as a minimum standard with Gigabit per second connections being desirable!

I agree wholeheartedly with Ian's last point. It is very easy to criticise the failures and not comment on the success stories - which is why I have praised every success of BT's which affect me and why I have drawn attention in this blog to all the success stories that have offered hope to villages like ours - to inspirational folk like Guy Jarvis of NextGenUs, Aidan Paul of Vitesse Networks, the folks at Rutland Telecoms and the broadband campaigners around the country like Cyberdoyle and Lindsey Annison.

And a final question, which some of you out there might be able to answer - what really made Cornwall so attractive to BT?

STOP PRESS: Aww. It looks as though BT are playing with the website and it no longer shows which exchange is in which position. Bah Humbug I say!