Broadband delayed

Here is the letter from Trilogy customer services:

Many thanks for registering with Trilogy and we look forward to welcoming you as a customer shortly.

Unfortunately we have encountered a problem that means that we are going to have to delay the launch of our Broadband services in your area.

We have had to halt all work on the West Wratting exchange because of civil engineering problems encountered by BT in the form of tree routes at the site. Unfortunately BT cannot lay its cables because of the density/thickness of the roots and is prohibited by law from cutting them in any way. We have tried to see if the problem can be overcome by moving the cabinet a metre or so in any direction but the problem is insurmountable. We are currently surveying for a new site outside of the West Wratting exchange but the consequence of this is that BT insists that the clock has to start again and we have to submit a new planning application, which they have 75 working days to action. The impact of this is that that the 'go-live' date for West Wratting will now move back to September.

We sincerely apologise for this delay and will keep you informed of our progress over the next few months.

Regards

Customer Services
Trilogy Telecom
 

South Cambridgeshire District Council and Trilogy Telecoms have jointly announced that the West Wratting exchange (which serves all of Carlton's 01223 29xxxx numbers) will be broadband enabled in late May.

Details are available from the South Cambs website or from Trilogy. There is a voucher scheme to cut out the (rather expensive since we're a rural exchange) start up fees - however the deadline for this may have expired by the time you read this - hurry.

Distance from exchange matters

Trilogy will be using ADSL2 technology, which enables telephone lines up to 7.5km to be broadband enabled. This is compared to BT's ADSL1 offering which would only cope up to 6km (if available). 

However for ADSL2 anybody between 6.5 and 7.5km will only be able to receive half-usual broadband speeds of 256kb/s (128kb/s for uploading). However this is still about 8x faster than current dial-up. The phone line appears (see this map) to follow the road from West Wratting via Weston Colville and Carlton Green. The map shown looks a bit strange as it shows the end of the line as Cocksedge Farm (which cuts back from the Church).

Multimap suggests that the road distance along this route from the Wratting exchange to the post box in Carlton Hill is 7.1km. So it is likely that the parts of Carlton close to Brinkley may not be able to receive broadband (it is worth getting your line tested just in case).  If you want to find the rough distance to your postcode area then use Multimap's direction feature. Here CB1 5LU is the postcode of the Wratting exchange, CB1 5NS is an area in Weston Colville (otherwise Multimap takes you via the wrong route) and CB8 9JY is the postcode of Carlton's postbox.

I would imagine that Carlton Green is close enough to the exchange to get the full speed service.

Willingham Green (01638)

If you are in Willingham Green and have an (01638) number then your exchange is in Stetchworth which has not been scheduled for an upgrade yet (BT has set a trigger level of 250 registrations on their site), however on the bright side you should be able to get 512kb/s if it does arrive.

Wireless becomes possible

If someone was desperate for more throughput than they can currently achieve (due to line distance), but didn't mind about increased latency, then now our exchange has been upgraded it might be possible to set up a wireless link between somewhere closer to the exchange that was also line of sight of some part of Carlton (say Weston Green for instance). A house is Weston Green could buy a very high bandwidth service as it is close enough to the exchange. Brinkley would also be a prime candidate if it had broadband!