Broadband News

News, views and analysis

Another batch of RFS date changes

22 Dec 2004 | 21.34 Europe/London
Another day, another load of RFS changes! The news for all but three of the following exchanges is bad I'm afraid.

RFS date changes

21 Dec 2004 | 00.14 Europe/London
This week heralds some good news for six exchanges and bad news for a further two.

The two exchanges which have had their RFS dates slip are as follows:








Exchange Old RFS date New RFS date

Five exchanges enabled for SDSL early

21 Dec 2004 | 00.07 Europe/London
Five exchanges have been enabled for SDSL service 3 months ahead of schedule. Burton On Trent, Leicester, Luton, Scunthorpe and Tunbridge Wells were all enabled for BT's SDSL offerings a week ago on December 13th.

Easynet to offer LLUStream

16 Dec 2004 | 13.03 Europe/London
Easynet are to offer LLUStream via their network of LLU exchanges - list

Bulldog quietly enable more exchanges

06 Dec 2004 | 09.21 Europe/London
Bulldog have silently unbundled an additional 23 exchanges recently. Whilst their Bulldog4 service is no longer available for purchase, it does mean that their integrated phone and internet packages are more widely available around London.

BT release further SDSL RFS dates

06 Dec 2004 | 09.12 Europe/London
BT Wholesale have announced a further 76 SDSL RFS dates, meaning that by the end of March next year, there will be 300 BT SDSL enabled exchanges in the UK.

Three more RFS delays

30 Nov 2004 | 23.26 Europe/London
Three more exchanges dotted around the countries have had their RFS dates put back. Once again, the primary reason seems to be cabling, although in the case of Balfron there is apparently difficulty in acquiring the necessary exchange hardware.

RFS dates updates

24 Nov 2004 | 19.50 Europe/London
This week sees the release of seven delayed 'Ready for Service' dates, and one improved one.

BT to rollout SDSL to a further 1000 exchanges by April 06

24 Nov 2004 | 16.09 Europe/London
BT today announced that they will rollout SDSL to a further 1000 exchanges
in two batches of 500.

UKOnline announces 8Mbps ADSL

15 Nov 2004 | 11.59 Europe/London
UKOnline, a subsidary of EasyNet, have announced their plans to launch 8Mbps broadband for £39.

Four more RFS delays

15 Nov 2004 | 11.54 Europe/London
Four more exchanges, due to be enabled on the 17th of November (this Wednesday), have had their RFS dates delayed until December.

Telewest boost users speeds for free - again!

11 Nov 2004 | 22.28 Europe/London
Users of Telewest's Blueyonder service must be having a great year so far - first a free speed boost back in August, and now another penciled in for Christmas.

Six new BT SDSL ready for service dates

06 Nov 2004 | 10.45 Europe/London
BT Wholesale have announced six more SDSL ready for service dates. Cricklewood, Edinburgh Donaldson, Feltham, Southend, Stafford and Staines will all be able to receive BT Wholesale provided SDSL products by November 30th.

Albrightons RFS date delayed again

06 Nov 2004 | 10.29 Europe/London
The residents of Albrighton will not have been too pleased when they heard that their RFS date had been delayed again.

NTL and BT set to increase broadband speeds

29 Oct 2004 | 08.02 Europe/London
In the past few days we've heard rumours of NTL boosting their maximum broadband speed from 1.5Mbps to 3Mbps.

Delayed RFS date for Sambrook

21 Oct 2004 | 17.18 Europe/London
Sambrook in Shropshire has become the latest exchange to fall foul of duct blockages.

Delayed RFS date for Thurlaston

18 Oct 2004 | 13.35 Europe/London
This afternoon brings some bad news for the residents of Thurlaston, as they are the latest exchange to suffer a delay to their RFS date.

Further RFS date changes

01 Oct 2004 | 22.15 Europe/London
BT Wholesale have today announced a further six Ready For Service date improvements. One of particular interest (partly because it is very local to me) is the

More RFS slippages and improvements

28 Sep 2004 | 23.19 Europe/London
Another week, another list of RFS changes. The good news is that the number of improvements outweigh the number of delays.

BT trims LLU costs even further

23 Sep 2004 | 17.48 Europe/London
The Register is carrying the news that BT Wholesale have dropped their LLU prices again this year.

Great Smeaton RFS delay

23 Sep 2004 | 17.08 Europe/London
Unfortunately for the residents of Great Smeaton, a backhaul cabling shortage has meant that their RFS date has been delayed.

LLU is the flavour of the month

20 Sep 2004 | 20.00 Europe/London
HomeChoice, Easynet, Bulldog and now NTL have all issued announcements about new LLU rollouts this month.

RFS slippages and improvements

13 Sep 2004 | 07.48 Europe/London
Today sees the shuffling of a further seven RFS dates. Four of these changes are significant improvements to the original RFS date set.

Availability checker web services documentation

08 Sep 2004 | 17.49 Europe/London
In recent months I have been developing an availability checker backend interface that can be used by other sites to provide their own availability checker.

New ADSL limits take effect

06 Sep 2004 | 07.01 Europe/London
Shortly before seven o'clock this morning, BT updated their online systems for the new ADSL line limits.

A word of caution about ordering for the new limits

05 Sep 2004 | 12.45 Europe/London
Tomorrow is the day that the new ADSL limits are put in to effect, allowing a further 1 million people to be able to access ADSL broadband.

A couple more RFS date slippages

05 Sep 2004 | 11.42 Europe/London
With BT's busiest exchange-enabling month now behind us, we should see a decline in the number of delays occuring.

UK-Bug's birthday competition

01 Sep 2004 | 21.48 Europe/London
The UK Broadband Usergroup are celebrating their first birthday in style by offering a years free subscription to

BT shuffles a few more RFS dates

01 Sep 2004 | 08.57 Europe/London
BT Wholesale have been forced to move a further three RFS dates back due to cabling issues. However, they have been able to move one exchanges date forward as well.

Delays on recently enabled exchanges

24 Aug 2004 | 09.44 Europe/London
UK-Bug is today running the story that 31 recently commissioned exchanges are suffering delays with respect to end-user orders for ADSL.

BT announce new extended reach limits

18 Aug 2004 | 10.39 Europe/London
BT Wholesale have this morning announced the

NTL concludes the Milton Keynes wireless trials

12 Aug 2004 | 21.59 Europe/London
NTL have today notified Milton Keynes Council and customers participating in their wireless trials stating that the wireless trials operating in the area are to be discontinued.

Bulldog to discontinue resale of Datastream and LLU products

08 Aug 2004 | 17.57 Europe/London
UK-Bug are today leading with the news that Bulldog is to discontinue the resale of its most popular products.

Availability checker revamp!

07 Aug 2004 | 19.48 Europe/London
Lately I've had the chance to experiment with revamping the availability checker on the site.

LTT offers new ChoiceNet wireless broadband service

06 Aug 2004 | 19.46 Europe/London
LTT have today announced a new service called ChoiceNet that allows users to customise their downstream, upstream, contention ratio and additional extras both before buying and during live service.

IPStream Home 250 confirmed and pricing revealed

04 Aug 2004 | 18.06 Europe/London
BT Wholesale have today released pricing information for their new Home 250 product, which is to be launched on the 1st September 2004.

Preliminary Milton Keynes extended reach trial results

03 Aug 2004 | 13.26 Europe/London
Amendment (17:40): Since publishing this article I have spoken to BT Wholesale and they have asked me to reiterate the fact that none of this is yet confirmed.

Blagdon and West Harptree receive new dates

03 Aug 2004 | 07.44 Europe/London
The Blagdon and

BT increase IPStream business prices

02 Aug 2004 | 16.32 Europe/London
BT Wholesale have this afternoon told service providers that the prices of the business products "IPStream Office" and "IPStream S" are to rise from the 1st September 2004.

A further 4 RFS dates delayed

21 Jul 2004 | 18.50 Europe/London
In news that will unnerve those with approaching RFS dates, a further four such dates have been pushed back as a result of cabling issues.

Availability checker update

16 Jul 2004 | 22.18 Europe/London
I've made a couple of small changes to the availability checker this evening.

NTL speed boost dates trickle out

15 Jul 2004 | 09.44 Europe/London
UK-Bug are reporting that the long anticipated

Another 2 exchanges have their RFS dates postponed

14 Jul 2004 | 22.01 Europe/London
Bradley and Newtonmore have become the latest exchanges to suffer from delayed RFS dates.

Number of unbundled Easynet exchanges breaches 200

10 Jul 2004 | 20.57 Europe/London
Easynet have announced yesterday that they have now unbundled 200 exchanges for their services, which operate at up to 8Mbps.

Free ADSL for a year competition!

10 Jul 2004 | 18.05 Europe/London
UK-Bug are continuing their monthly competitions with the opportunity to win a years free subscription to Eclipse's new FLEX ADSL service.

Follow up to the SDSL news

03 Jul 2004 | 23.21 Europe/London
Following the news yesterday of the 150 additional SDSL exchanges I've updated the individual exchange pages to reflect the changes (if applicable), modified the

150 new SDSL exchanges announced

02 Jul 2004 | 20.02 Europe/London
BT Wholesale have today announced the next 150 exchanges to be enabled for their SDSL products.

SDSL is targetted at small businesses who need to be able to send data just as fast as they can receive it.

'Plan and Build' RFS dates released

30 Jun 2004 | 08.40 Europe/London
BT have now released the complete list of 1045 RFS dates, and also a further 63 improved dates.

Initial reports of the the broadband rollout announcement

30 Jun 2004 | 07.18 Europe/London
Whilst the list of RFS dates is not yet available, the BT press release for it has just hit my inbox.

Reminder for tomorrow...

29 Jun 2004 | 14.14 Europe/London
Given the number of emails I have received recently about the planned rollout scheme, I thought it would be good idea to post some of the questions and answers here.

Two more exchanges suffer RFS delays

23 Jun 2004 | 18.34 Europe/London
Two exchanges in Wales have become the latest to fall foul of delays in Ready For Service dates. Trefnant and Caerwys have had their dates moved to the 28th July.

TPON copper overlay update

22 Jun 2004 | 19.24 Europe/London
Given BT Wholesale's fast approaching planned rollout announcement (due June 30th by the way!), and the very successful Milton Keynes extended reach trial, it is all too easy to forget about those with TPON lines.

Win half price ADSL for a year!

15 Jun 2004 | 11.07 Europe/London
UK-Bug have teamed up with NDO to offer a competition for half-price broadband for a year.

BT cuts IPStream regrade prices

11 Jun 2004 | 12.30 Europe/London
Following the migration price cuts that came into effect on the 1st May, BT have now reduced the pricing for regrades between IPStream products.

Long reach trial extended to areas in Scotland

09 Jun 2004 | 14.10 Europe/London
I have just received news that Fort William and

Follow-up to the 21st century network article

09 Jun 2004 | 12.09 Europe/London
Following the presentation this morning by BT Wholesale (slides available

BT spell out plans for their 21st century network

09 Jun 2004 | 10.00 Europe/London
British Telecom have today announced that they will be trialing PSTN to VoIP transformations at 18 exchanges in South East London, Kent and East Anglia.

Liberia to launch 36Mbps wireless service in London

08 Jun 2004 | 15.59 Europe/London
Liberia, a new company launched this afternoon at VON Europe, will trial 36Mbps wireless broadband access in London's Docklands area this summer.

Milton Keynes trial gets off to a flying start

07 Jun 2004 | 03.39 Europe/London
BT's extended reach trial in Milton Keynes has seen its first adopters last week, and the response so far seems to be very positive.

New Standon Rock and Tideswell RFS dates

03 Jun 2004 | 14.45 Europe/London
BT have now released new RFS dates for Standon Rock and Tideswell. These exchanges were due to go live on June 2nd, but were

NTL to invest €100 million in its Irish network

03 Jun 2004 | 14.34 Europe/London
NTL have today announced plans to upgrade their cable network in Ireland by the end of 2006.

BT launches two-way satellite service

03 Jun 2004 | 13.10 Europe/London
The Register is reporting that BT have launched a wholesale two-way satellite service.

LTT expand wireless coverage

03 Jun 2004 | 08.26 Europe/London
LTT Broadband, the company which recently launched a 4Mbps symmetric wireless service, has increased its wireless coverage in the South East region.

All Scottish communities to receive broadband by the end of 2005

01 Jun 2004 | 21.48 Europe/London
The Scottish Executive has today announced that it will be providing affordable broadband to all Scottish communities by the end of 2005.

HomeChoice forced to cut service from 21 exchanges

01 Jun 2004 | 21.47 Europe/London
HomeChoice, the ISP that provides video-on-demand services over DSL lines, has recently told users on 21 exchanges in exchanges in London that their service will cease as of June 30th.

Eclipse Internet launch FLEX broadband

01 Jun 2004 | 12.39 Europe/London
Eclipse Internet have today launched a new range of ADSL services that offer flexible bandwidth to end users.

LLU coverage grows further still

30 May 2004 | 23.20 Europe/London
Both Easynet and Bulldog have increased their number of unbundled exchanges recently.

Standon Rock RFS delayed

30 May 2004 | 10.14 Europe/London
Standon Rock in Staffordshire has become the latest exchange to have it's RFS date delayed.

The exchange was due to go live on June 2nd (Wednesday), but a blockage in some of the ducting has delayed the fibre-optic cable installation.

PlusNet launches new capacity-charging based products

30 May 2004 | 09.32 Europe/London
The Sheffield based ISP PlusNet have launched a

Telewest Broadband provide coverage data

28 May 2004 | 13.34 Europe/London
Telewest Broadband, whose Blueyonder service provides some 498,000 users with broadband access, have now supplied us with complete coverage data for their services.

Cable and Wireless acquires Bulldog Communications

28 May 2004 | 09.01 Europe/London
Cable and Wireless have announced this morning that they have purchased Bulldog Communications for £18.

RFS dates for today (27th May 2004)

27 May 2004 | 23.43 Europe/London
BT have this evening released a further 9 RFS dates, as well as 18 of improved dates. The 9 new RFS dates are as follows:






Annbank 31/08/2005
Carradale 31/08/2005
Carron 31/08/2005
Dunure 31/08/2005
Kiltarlity 31/08/2005		 Lockerbie 31/08/2005
Bow 31/08/2005
Stow 31/08/2005
St Mawes 27/07/2005

The 18 improved RFS dates are as follows:






Portscatho 28/07/2004
Boat Of Garten 31/08/2005
Killin 31/08/2005
Kilmun 31/08/2005
Kippen 31/08/2005
Letham (Angus) 31/08/2005
Muckhart 31/08/2005
Muthill 31/08/2005
Oxton 31/08/2005		 Portmahomack 31/08/2005
Portree 31/08/2005
Powerstock 31/08/2005
Salen 31/08/2005
Skeabost Bridge 31/08/2005
Spey Bay 31/08/2005
Stanley 31/08/2005
Tobermory 31/08/2005
Whitehills 31/08/2005

This now leaves only

Datastream price cuts and itemised broadband billing

27 May 2004 | 11.44 Europe/London
BT have announced a wholesale reduction in Datastream pricing of £1 per month. The change, effective as of June 1st, means that ISP's will now be charged £74.

Athelstaneford RFS date delayed

26 May 2004 | 10.39 Europe/London
The residents of Athelstaneford (East Lothian, Scotland) were expecting to be able to receive broadband ADSL shortly after their RFS date of June 2nd .

LTT launch 4Mbps symmetric service

24 May 2004 | 09.29 Europe/London
LTT Broadband, the wireless provider covering areas in West Kent and East Sussex, have now launched their new 4Mbps symmetric broadband product.

Update on the capacity information

19 May 2004 | 00.48 Europe/London
Following the issues from last week, I am now using an alternative source for my new

Northern Ireland and Scottish Islands RFS dates

18 May 2004 | 12.50 Europe/London
Every exchange in Northern Ireland is now either enabled or has a RFS date.

ISDN users in Milton Keynes given hope

17 May 2004 | 11.10 Europe/London
Following the news that BT will be excluding those with ISDN and Home Highway from the Milton Keynes trial, the Milton Keynes Broadband Action Group has released the results of another

BT slips 3 more SDSL exchanges into the mix

16 May 2004 | 22.29 Europe/London
BT have recently installed SDSL services in a further three exchanges in the UK, bringing the national total to

Easynet LLU coverage expands

15 May 2004 | 04.11 Europe/London
Just when you thought you couldn't possibly fit any more LLU news into one week, Easynet goes and unbundles another set of exchanges!

Until very recently Easynet have been operating with 149 unbundled telephone exchanges.

HomeChoice to increase LLU coverage

15 May 2004 | 02.12 Europe/London
The Register is reporting that HomeChoice, the LLU provider who offer digital TV and broadband internet over a DSL line, is to further expand its coverage.

Telewest complete their 50% faster upgrade

15 May 2004 | 02.02 Europe/London
Telewest have now confirmed that users of their Blueyonder cable internet service have completed their

Exchange capacity data issues

14 May 2004 | 21.52 Europe/London
Long-time readers of this site will know that I strive to bring the best possible data to the site. This does of course include making sure that the presented data is accurate.

RFS dates for today (14th May 2004)

14 May 2004 | 18.55 Europe/London
BT have just released a fresh batch of 24 RFS dates. We were expecting all 60 today, although these have not yet materialised.

RFS dates for today (13th May 2004)

13 May 2004 | 19.57 Europe/London
BT Wholesale have just released a further 28 RFS dates. The remaining exchanges which have either triggered or were included in the list of 42 above 90%, will have their RFS dates released tomorrow.

Cable broadband coverage

13 May 2004 | 13.44 Europe/London
Long-time readers of the site will know that I have been trying to get coverage data from the two cable broadband providers in the UK (NTL and Telewest for those who don't know!) for some time now.

Site developments

13 May 2004 | 10.57 Europe/London
As some of you may have noticed, I've introduced a couple of new features on the site in the past day or so.

BT Wholesale slashes LLU charges

13 May 2004 | 08.29 Europe/London
This morning

List of ISP's particpating in the Milton Keynes trial released

11 May 2004 | 00.02 Europe/London
A preliminary list of the ISP's that will be taking orders for the Milton Keynes trial has been released by the

Update from the Milton Keynes trial

07 May 2004 | 21.04 Europe/London
As a part of the Milton Keynes extended reach trial, BT will be providing regular correspondance to the

RFS dates for today (7th May 2004)

07 May 2004 | 20.19 Europe/London
As promised yesterday, BT have delivered another batch of RFS dates today. This brings the weeks total to 94 dates in total.

Exchange capacity information for enabled exchanges

07 May 2004 | 01.30 Europe/London
As many of you have already noticed, last night I added a new section of information to the exchange pages (specifically for ADSL enabled exchanges).

RFS dates for today (6th May 2004)

06 May 2004 | 22.20 Europe/London
A

PCCW launches 3.4Ghz wireless broadband service

06 May 2004 | 12.14 Europe/London
UK Broadband, a wholly-owned subsidary of PCCW, have launched their wireless broadband service.

Further SDSL rollout?

06 May 2004 | 08.57 Europe/London
Word on the street this morning is that BT are going to be enabling a further 150 exchanges for SDSL in the near future.

Brief update

05 May 2004 | 14.49 Europe/London
Site modifications

As some of you will have noticed, I've made some relatively small changes to the site.

Scottish islands receive their date for broadband

28 Apr 2004 | 12.30 Europe/London
Following the announcement last October that BT Scotland were teaming up with THUS to provide broadband to Stornoway, Kirkwall and Lerwick, BT have today announced that all three exchanges will go live on May 26th.

BT Wholesale slash ADSL migration charges

28 Apr 2004 | 12.06 Europe/London
The pre-registration scheme may have drawn its last breath, but the news just keeps on coming.

BT have today announced the reduction in cost of IPStream ADSL (the standard type of connection) migrations from £35 +VAT to £11 +VAT.

RFS dates for April 28th 2004

28 Apr 2004 | 11.40 Europe/London
This miserable Wednesday morning (here in Bath at least!) brings us a fresh batch of 40 RFS dates. BT informs us that their checker will not update for a day or two.

Summary of the pre-registration scheme

27 Apr 2004 | 19.38 Europe/London
Since the pre-registration scheme was introduced back in June 2002, 909,087 unique pre-registrations have been entered into BT's systems.

BT says goodnight to preregistration scheme

27 Apr 2004 | 07.59 Europe/London
BT have this morning announced that they are to scrap the preregistration scheme and replace it with a pre-ordering system.

Tiscali launch Pay-as-you-go broadband ADSL

11 Mar 2004 | 01.29 Europe/London
BT Retail received a lot of criticism last week when it announced its new "Broadband Basic" package for £19.

BT Wholesale to offer usage based broadband

21 Jan 2004 | 16.03 Europe/London
BT Wholesale today announced that they will be offering usage based broadband product to service providers from later this year.

10,000 pre-registrations via this site!

11 Jan 2004 | 11.01 Europe/London
That's right... as of a couple of days ago (yes yes, I forgot to check) the site had taken 10,000 registrations! These were gathered from the "Register Now" link at the top left, campaigners websites that integrated my form, spreadsheets manually sent to me and, most recently, from the new Get On And Get It forms (see further down the news page for details).

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