Ewhurst Broadband SEEDA Application Scores First Major Success!
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Read all about it in the Surrey Advertiser
ESHB Press Release
Against strong competition from 21 other grant applicants Ewhurst has scored its first major success having been selected to progress to the next full application stage.
This early success reflects the high quality approach taken by the working group who, whilst recognising the scale of the task ahead, remain confident that their combined expertise plus support from the Ewhurst business community will realise the goal of achieving an improved broadband service to residents of the Surrey Hills area.
Focus will now be on achieving commitment for the supply of improved broadband to at least 200 Ewhurst premises of which 20% must be business users as stipulated by SEEDA.
Anyone interested in taking a more active role in achieving the aim of obtaining improved broadband service are invited to visit http://www.ewhurst-broadband.org.uk/ or select Ewhurst Broadband into their browser and register their interest.
There are approximately 900 residences in the Ewhurst catchment area, a significant proportion of which are owned by self employed or home based workers for whom the prospect of an improved broadband service will prove a significant communications enhancement. The working group recognises that to succeed with the application they will need as many as possible to register and thus support this initiative; they invite anyone excited by this opportunity to join them in this exciting bid to realise 21st century communications for the community. Businesses should register separately in addition to their domestic registration.
We were disappointed, but not surprised, that we have been unable to get a broadband service in Peaslake Road.
In broadband folk-lore false green actually means red = NO SERVICE ! You’ll see in the following picture obtained from the Kitz availability checker that BT estimate a speed of 500 Kbps was possible. In practice with a very high line attenuation of over 86 dB it is impossible to obtain broadband here without new cabling in Peaslake Road or FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) at the Bulls Head. Furthermore the road distance estimator to the centre of the postcode for the whole of Peaslake road will be underestimating the cable route which also includes an extra 1.2 km up Ride Way and down Moon Hall Road rather then the direct 400 m route. Click on the pictures to get full sized images.
For the technically minded here’s the modem diagnostics page. The zeros indicate the modem can’t connect and therefore has no data.
Kind regards,
Walter
For the more technically inclined I’ve added a picture below showing a line disturbance at 09:49:10 lasting until 09:50:01 on 12 August 2010.
It appears that some change was made then as happily the modem no longer disconnects when a phone call is answered.
The line still suffers from noise but at least it is stable with an IP Profile of 1000Kbps and a throughput of about 900 Kbps.
The picture shows a number of errors including LOS – Loss Of Signal, LOF – Loss of Frame and State Timeout usually means a response was too slow probably due to a disconnection.
The graph at the bottom shows how many digital bits can be loaded into each frequency tone. The left hand blank area is the unused voice call area. The next group is the upstream bits area and the remainder is for the downstream. The taller each line is the faster the modem can communicate with the exchange. The numbers underneath each line count the bits in hexadecimal i.e. from 2 to 9 and then A, B, C, D, E & F.
I still await an explanation on what was done as it would be good to know how to solve this type of problem in the future.
Kind regards,
Walter
Line disturbance diagnostic data – click on the image to see an expanded version
I thought some of you might like to watch this short video describing how the Walters Art Museum (No connection to me!) is producing digital images of their beautiful manuscripts for use by anybody anywhere in the world. This project demonstrates why we all need more bandwidth.
The rather less sophisticated side of this project is that they are having to transport their images using hard disks shipped by courier around the world !
There are many organisations involved in similar activities elsewhere sometimes adding a great deal of additional detail to the original images.
E.g. This transatlantic project is available on line:-
http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/news/2009_nov_16
and more information is available here:-
http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/news/2009_nov_16
The more curious might spot a connection here:-
http://www.quartos.org/info/about.html
or more easily here:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jan/26/shakespeare-online-digital-archive
Kind regards,
Walter
I am very grateful to Frank Riddle junior and John Greenwood who provided the information in this document.
Ewhurst Telephone exchange history
Kind regards,
Walter
We have been persevering for about two years now with a long line connection in Holmbury Road. When a telephone call is answered it usually causes the modem to disconnect. When it reconnects it does so at a much lower speed. This causes the “Assured Rate Connection” i.e. the IP Profile, to drop to 750 Kbps so the throughput remains at about 650 Kbps for days, or until another call is received. The engineers have tried many times but have been unable to cure the problem to date. There is also a lot of ticking line noise all around the area which most certainly won’t be helping the situation. This is usually caused by faulty electric fences shorting to ground via plants etc. We have partially hidden the problem by installing the best quality modem available. It still disconnects but then reconnects at a reasonable speed keeping the Assured Rate Connection at 1000 Kbps and thus achieving a throughput of about 900 Kbps.
I have attached a sound file of the ticking we obtained just by touching a metal cable guard with a tone tracer (see picture below). The noise is present all over the place and perhaps surprisingly in most underground cables as well. You might like to listen for this ticking which usually won’t be as loud. You can then compare it when using the 17070 Option 2 Quiet Line Test. Audio attachment
This fault demonstrates that long line twisted pair telephone wires are not really fit for broadband purpose. When we manage to get Fibre To The Home installed the speeds will increase quite dramatically and fibre is not affected in any way by electrical noise.
Kind regards,
Walter
Here is another example of the effect of slow broadband on property sales, from an email received last week:
I am currently looking at purchasing a property in Ewhurst village, but am genuinely concerned about the level of internet connection there. I often need to work from home.