Monday, April 30, 2012

Nantwich Gets its First FTTC Connection

TSM engineer Stuart McKindley blogs about being the first person in Nantwich to get super-fast broadband.

Fiber to the cabinet (FTTC) is the new super fast broadband service sweeping through the UK, transforming the potential speeds of most lines that are enabled for this service. A great deal of work has already taken place in the nationwide FTTC upgrades, however we’re still in the fairly early stages and currently most of the UK is yet to be FTTC enabled.

It’s felt like a long wait for FTTC to become available to my connection at home, Nantwich was certainly not at the top of the list for Openreach, so with great envy I’ve spent the last 12 months or so ordering super fast FTTC connections for other people, while having to make do with standard broadband at home. But finally last week my cabinet was enabled for FTTC and a few milliseconds later i put my regrade order through.

The engineer that arrived to install my new master socket was pleased to tell me that my cabinet was the first to go live in Nantwich, and not only that but i was the first person in Nantwich to get FTTC. It is now all up and running and is noticeably quicker, and my speed test result showed that my line now had a downstream speed of 37Mbps, a lot quicker than the 5Mbps speed the connection ran at previously. If it follows the same trend as the other lines that we’ve upgraded to FTTC, it should also be more stable and less prone to BT related faults.

Unfortunately i expect it won’t be long till i get used to my speedy connection, at which point i will no doubt find myself getting annoyed whenever surfing on the Internet on a connection that isn’t 37Mbps. But hopefully this type of connection will become the norm for everyone soon as Openreach continue their nationwide installation of the service. The benefits to businesses of faster broadband are obvious, especially for those that require a faster upstream speed. If anyone reading this is interested in the new FTTC service, please don’t hesitate to call me for more information.

Stuart can be reached on the normal Atlas number - 0333 666 3330

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Stuart
How did you get super-fast at home in Nantwich, I'm at CW5 5YD (near Reaseheath) and I can't get it according to BT web site, but the Red Lion pub appears to be able to which is across the road. I thought it was maybe just businesses but obviously not if you can get it at home. What's going on?

Stuart said...

Hi, I've looked up your postcode and it doesn't look like FTTC will be arriving at your house anytime soon, though a lookup on the postcode is not as accurate as checking the telephone number. If you give me a call (0333 666 3330) I can run a check on your number, and answer any further questions you might have.
Thanks