Broadband rollout in Scottish village confuses residents

Residents of Durno, a small Scottish village located in Aberdeenshire, has have been left perplexed after BT deployed a new fibre broadband cabinet. They found that many properties that are closest to the cabinet are left without the fastest connection.

Durno has long been a victim of poor internet speeds which led to some bad press for the Openreach project in 2014 and as a response plans were put in place to deploy an “up to 80Mbps” FTTC network there.

The deployment was complete at the end of 2017 but it soon became clear that not everyone was able to take advantage of the high speed internet advertised. Ed Morris, a resident of Durno spoke to ISPreview about the poor quality of internet speed he was receiving.

“It has resulted in only some premises in my village gaining access to superfast broadband, not including myself, due to not enough capacity on the new fibre line. The situation is utterly ridiculous, and we have been given no timeframe for resolution of this ongoing problem.”

Initially Ed was told that the problems arose because of poor capacity on the new lines in Durno. It became apparent however that there were certain premises within the village who were in fact receiving the advertised speed. To make matters worse for residents it appears that they were assured until recently the new line would increase their internet speed once it was deployed.

This issue is not unique to Durno however, with many similar problems arising in areas where new developments have been built. Problems also arise when there has been a re-configuration of a complex network to deal with Exchange Only Lines which has been known to cause an awkward coverage mix.

A spokesperson for Open reach told ISPreview that

“A small number of premises in the Parkside Gardens area had not been built at the time the intervention area was set, and were therefore not included in the rollout.”

This explanation however is not satisfactory for Ed who pointed out the some of the houses which had not been completed at the time of the deployment could receive the high speeds while others couldn’t. Openreach have agreed to consider the situation and have said that they will “review” the issues in an effort to “see what can be done”. There is a possibility that further engineering work will need to be undertaken to make sure everyone can benefit from the proposed higher speeds although at this stage it is not known exactly what the issue is. Some Durno are still being assured by their internet provider that the newly deployed cabinet is currently at capacity and is therefore unable to service anymore premises’.

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