A guilty admission

I readily admit that I’ve long been a cynic about BT’s reliance on ADSL technology for its roll-out of superfast broadband access.  And I’m certainly not alone in grumbling about the limited shelf-life of ADSL as a network solution.  But then there comes the real world matter of expediency…

I live in a small rural village in which BT has been the only viable ISP on offer – providing typical – and surprisingly respectable -download speeds of 6-8Mbps.  I watched with wry amusement the promises by my County Council that superfast availability would be “here soon” (under the aegis of a BDUK scheme), doubting whether the village’s older-age profile would make it a BT priority.  But, in the fullness of time, Openreach vans started to become prominent and the old BT cabinets were gradually replaced with their newer, much chunkier versions.  Still, the fact that my house sits outside the village centre and is served by overhead wires made me sceptical about its superfast prospects.  I was therefore hugely surprised to see that BT’s online checker suggested I might qualify for its Infinity service at speeds of up to 76 Mbps. Bah!!

A couple of weeks later, an unsuspecting BT engineer arrived on a sunny morning to install the service in my 15^th century home.  He faced not only the property’s “bizarre” telephone wiring but also an electrical system that bears all the scars left by the ‘enthusiastic amateur’ who sold me the house.  The poor man visibly wilted but settled in for what was clearly going to be a long day… He finally left at 6.30pm.

And the outcome?  Well, I’ve run several online speed checks and the results are pretty consistent: I’m getting download speeds at 73-75 Mbps, uploads at around 12 Mbps.  Interim technology it may be, but not half bad for a country bumpkin!  Hats off to BT.