As previously mentioned earlier this year, BT Openreach have been working at the entrance to Middlemore to bring high speed Fibre to Middlemore, many of you have probably spotted the new green cabinet on the verge between the two roundabouts.
This work has now been completed and many Middlemore residents can now order Fibre broadband from their ISP of choice. This does means you don’t need to use BT, there are many ISP’s available that can offer you a Fibre service, the biggest suppliers appear to be BT, Plus.Net, Sky, Talk Talk, Orange – a google will show you a list of many suppliers.
Unfortunately, as previously highlighted, it seems that the “newer” part of Middlemore is not connected to the green cabinet at the entrance to the estate but to a different one further into the estate and thus, are still unable to receive fibre. We have asked BT for a date when they will be upgrading the rest of Middlemore to fibre however as yet no date has been announced.
To check if you can now order fibre, enter your phone number into the checker if it has a line in the results that says FTTC and a speed somewhere between 20Mb and 80Mb your can order a high speed connection if you so wish.
BT Checker: https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html
Thanks for the tip off – just ordered upgrade from Sky!
Im with AOL and I’ve just called them and i have upgraded to there medium package, i was getting 2.7meg but now i can get fibre broadband i will be getting 38meg, free line rental 24/7 calls and free international calls…and all for £19.50…RESULT !!
Just had mine installed this morning – Oh wow what a difference.. fantastic 🙂
Its so annoying that houses maybe 500meters away can get these sort of speeds and I can only get 2 mb
and we don’t even know when our side will be done
2mb! I wish I got that! …….. I only get 0.6 upload. It takes 10mins to watch a 3min youtube clip.
I just get so mad that I have to have unlimited download as I cant stream anything.
Come on BT and sort it out!! ……. please!
Any updates on the fiber as of yet? I’ve seen few BT vans driving around the middlemore so maybe they are extending the area for fiber connections ? The 2mb down is really rip off as we have to pay £35…
Not available on the new part of the estate yet, very frustrating. Took me over 2 hours to download a tv show from Itunes. Give the people what they want BT.
Hi, I too am really dissapointed with Broadband on Middlemore! I live on Middleton Road, anyone got it here yet or know of when it will arrive?
thanks
I dont get it how they can not connect the fiber broadband? I simply dont understand the point of installing a copper cables that can handle maximum of 0.5mb download and 0.2mb upload which is completely useless and my internet provider is charging £30 for this piece of s*** internet. Brand new area with brand new expensive houses and we gotta use internet from 90s or even worst ! We need to do something about that !! ASAP I cant event use my internet for xbox, pc or any other kind of gaming even the multiplayer games on my iphone are lagging as hell and are unplayable ! Completely disappointed !!!!
Sadly it comes down to cost, ADSL is based at the exchange which is located in The Slade/Badby Road (close to the Northampton College) – this then provides an ADSL signal along all the phone lines to the home users, the further away you are from this location the slower the connection is. 🙁
Fibre broadband means that a fibre cabinet is installed along side the existing local road cabinet (like at the entrance to the estate from the A361). The average cost of this installation including all the equipment is reported as over £35,000.
For BT to recoup those costs it expects a certain number of users to sign-up for the service – In Middlemore’s case the cabinet that hasn’t been upgraded yet also has a number of houses that have not been built yet, until these houses are built and occupied, they don’t believe they’ll have enough users signed up to recoup the £35,000 cost in the time frame they have set therefore consider it not commercially viable at present to spend the money to upgrade it.
The solution for this current issue is to get public funding to give to BT to pay for the upgrade (known as BDUK funding generally). This funding is designed to upgrade areas which otherwise would not get an upgrade as the provider wouldn’t be able to recoup their costs (small villages etc)
HOWEVER – Middlemore may or may not be suitable to be given this funding because at some point in the future, when the houses are built, the upgrade would be commercially viable as the provider would be able to recoup their costs… but until the houses are built, it is not commercially viable and therefore Middlemore should be able to get funding.
And that is one of the challenges that is currently being worked on hopefully there will be good news shortly with regards to this funding avenue.
Thank you admin3 for the detailed response. So based on what you’ve written the negotiations on the public funding are currently in progress and we should receive an answer shorty as of whether we will be eligible to get this money right? When you said more house needs to be build did you mean all the houses scheduled for until July 2016? If so we gonna wait a little while if we don’t get the funding…
Im just wondering how many houses are there on the ‘newer’ side of middlemore? Considering peoples complain I understand that only the older houses were connected to the fiber optic cabinet therefore it was maybe around 100 houses? I guess there is a lot more than 100 in the newer side so why we are not able to get it? Also, I live on the hidcote way which has the fiber optic connection but only up to house number 17 so why they can’t simply connect the rest of the houses on this street I am pretty sure that there is enough space in the cabinet for the remaining 30 houses or so… This is so frustrating
To be fair, this isn’t just BT’s fault, the developer is partly responsible for the infrastructure that is laid. Or so BT tell me!!
Having just moved into Middlemore Heights, i am shocked at the low speed of internet, i used to live in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere and had better speeds. The infrastructure is laid down by Openreach so i was told when we were connected. The developer is only responsible for the house side of the master socket, hence Openreach will only work on the master socket. I think that it is a really poor show on BT/Openreach’s behalf that new houses which are supposed to be built to modern standards (which most of Middlemore can be classed as new) don’t have fiber. Surely it made sense to do both cabinets in one go (and cheaper). The political nonsense and lack of foresight of these large companies is something to wonder at!
The required infrastructure is in place already across the estate, BT openreach require simply to connect high speed fibre broadband at the major/local exchanges. All the pipes and cables are already connected to your house hence no roads being dug up when the 1st wave went live.
I have been in Middlemore since 2010 and I know a lot have been here a lot longer but believe me, I work with (not for!) BT and there is no rushing them folks.
Patience folks, it’s your only friend here I’m afraid.