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The truths they don't want you to read....

Friday, February 13, 2009

Disconnecting communities

My previous post brought for a flurry of emails from people currently using Connected Communities all suggesting that any user criticising the service would find themselves disconnect from the service, as a punishment.

This was all second-hand information - a friend of a friend - and all pleading absolute confidentiality.

If this is happening with public money then it is utterly scandalous, and if anyone can provide any evidence of this happening then I will anonymise and publicise this. Until then, it has to be an urban a rural myth. Doesn't it?

69 comments:

Anonymous said...

Angus, don't be ridiculous. You know perfectly well this is nonsense. You can stir better than that.

Anonymous said...

It is not nonsense. I can name one lady who they threatened to disconnect, but didnt have the bottle to go through with the dastardly deed.

Anonymous said...

3.01 - I expect your lady is jumping to interpretations. "If you really hate it so much, we can take it down", was that it? I know a few who would take that as a threat but that doesn't mean it was meant as one. Anyway why am I defending CC. I'm not. I like conspiracy theories too but these ones are rubbish.

Anonymous said...

ConCom have two levels of threat:

1. Complainers. "If you don't like it then find another provider." Both they and the complainer know there isn't one.

2. Serial complainers. "We can't seem to provide you with a service you are happy with so we permanently disconnected you earlier today."

I've had the call. It was unpleasant, aggressive and confrontational. Took down the details, time, circumstances.

Will publicise in place and time of my own choosing. Oh and for the benefit of naive 1:06PM/4:19PM will link from here.

The satellite broadband system is on order.

Anonymous said...

4:19 PM ask the MSP. I believe he has the letter of complaint

Anonymous said...

4.19 here - well, I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong and look forward to the link. It's difficult to credit though, when it's all "I could prove it but I'm not going to".

Anonymous said...

By the way, the suggestion to #1 Complainers I certainly do believe, having had it myself.

Anonymous said...

I was threatened with legal action from Donnie (full of himself) Morrison for trying to petition con the communities, sorry I mean connect communities :o) He said that if i didnt stop trying to petition it his legal team would take the matter further & i also know many other people that have had their broadband disconnected for complaining.

When the connection doesnt work the help desk are bad for blaming the equipment of the end user alot even though its a fault with the heb.net system. I know one lady that had no connection for a month & heb.net blamed everything in their house to be at fault, even though she had someone in to replace her router & the rest of her pc equipment. Even after finding out it was the heb.net dish that was at fault they wouldnt refund her for the month without a connection. Shocking service.

Anonymous said...

A friend of mine ordered heb.net mid December & is still waiting for it to be installed. Even though the engineers were at both his next door neighbours one day to install it they wouldnt do his.

Extra engineers were taken on to help with the back log but the service seems to have got worse rather than better, but im not surprised as the company that is helping are very unreliable & unfriendly anyway.

I feel more sorry for the people in harris & uist that have been waiting ages to get a broadband service & once they get it the service is off more than it is on and the usual excuse from the help desk is that the problem is outwith their control, pass the buck.

The amount of money wasted on the project should be investigated. Money keeps getting thrown at it all the time without the service getting any better.

Anonymous said...

My problem was with "Lolita" (my apologies if I have the name wrong) at ConCom.

After 11 service interruptions in less than 5 weeks, I rang and indicated the frequency at which I had no broadband.

She was rude in reply. It was "your own fault for living in the Western Isles". If I wanted the level of service I required I should "shut up and move to a city". I could hear someone (male) laughing in the background.

She then used an offensive word to describe the Western Isles, which I will not repeat here as I have more class than her.

She rounded off her immature temper tantrum by saying that all customers of ConCom did was "whine and complain."

I politely tried to point out to her that customers would not complain so much if the service was of an acceptable reliability, but she put the phone down.

What can you do?

Anonymous said...

what can you do? strip Donnie of his MBE

Dear Liz,

I am writing to you concerning a gross error of judgement.........

Anonymous said...

Who cares whether he's got a pat on the head from an anachronistic institution? It was before the broadband hit the fan anyway. What's it got to do with anything?

Anonymous said...

I am afraid the concept of customer service or even civility is foreign to that woman - and she is not the only one in that office with that problem.

Anonymous said...

I do not know if it was the same woman. And whether male or female is not the issue, come to think of it. I rang and said that my Connected Communities being down (yet again) for a whole day with no warning had lost me a significant contract due to the short turn-around time for the tender reply.

Her response was to sharply say that it wasn't her problem and to slam the phone down on me.

What's even more galling is that we never get refunded for the time the service isn't working. I feel I am being literally robbed by this "service" that CNeS/HIE keep saying - lying - is wonderful, "state of the art" (!) and so forth.

Anonymous said...

I posted this before but here goes again. We have a petition at the European Parliament complaining about the ConCom con and have asked people to write in and complain about it. The address is;

Secretariat of the Committee on Petitions
European Parliament
Rue Wiertz
B-1047
Brussels
Belgium

and quote "Petition No.1249/08"

I would like to remind everyone who is hanging on and bearing this "service" until BT upgrades again, that ConCom already denied funding for exchange upgrades before and there is nothing to say this will not happen again...

Anonymous said...

The Berneray Community Council minutes for the 3rd March 2008 meeting states "Broadband – resident of Berneray has had Hebrides.net contract terminated. CC to write to Scotnet."

Anonymous said...

An interesting thread which made me Google the term concom connected communities, which brought up at the top of the results page:

Did you mean to search for:
"condom connected communities"

Anonymous said...

Can someone enlighten me. I live in a very remote part of Lewis. So remote that someone is going to plant a sodding great electricity converter station on pristine moorland and hope that no one notices it. Anyway, when I decided to acquire broadband I had quite a bit of choice when it came to a provider, Sky, BT (I really do not work for them), Virgin, Tiscali, Talk Talk etc....despite the remoteness. The maximum speed is about half a Meg. but this is more than enough especially after using dial up. All of the above were cheaper than the option provided by Internet Hell and I should imagine the staff were not nearly as rude (so far). Point is why are punters using ConCon? What are the technicalities behind it's monopoly in some areas?. Also can the person who is thinking of satellite broadband provide details? I was under the impression that was sent via a telephone line.

Anonymous said...

your label reminds me of the Five Children - as I remember, "It" was a very secretive rarely seen creature and also mischeivous - to put it mildly. any clues to the creature in the above post of yours?!

Anonymous said...

Sam Pudding: Are you just winding us up? If not, look at this link:

http://www.handilabour.org.uk/peterpeacockconnectedcommunities.pdf

helpfully provided on the other thread and you'll see the list of exchanges BT has upgraded, and the ones it hasn't. Those not upgraded cannot get highspeed internet. If you don't understand this you'll just have to take our word for it. Don't you think we all would have left CC long ago if we had any option? Other than satellite but it's very expensive to set up.

And 512 is not much good for many internet-heavy business users. Will do for a bit of surfing but not for serious use.

Anonymous said...

5.04 PM - "Those not upgraded cannot get highspeed internet." It's not they cannot get highspeed internet, its that BT were denied the state aid to do so.

Considering at least half of these 21 exchanges would have given 100% coverage to residents at lower prices and quicker speeds, if they had been part of the 2005 initiative, you can see why the people in these affected areas are unhappy about this...and why nobody in authority wants to speak about this. They have royally fecked this up.

If you are unhappy about this project then please contact the European Parliament at the address posted previously. Someone said to me today that he knew people in Uist that were "quietly unhappy" about this, that isn't enough and won't change anything, you have to be loudly unhappy!

Anonymous said...

What's the problem with Connected Communities? I always thought it was pretty good and I've certainly never had any connectivity issues. The only time I had cause to call their office, the staff were polite, friendly and helpful. Seriously, guys, you all need to chill about this - it's just internet access, not a dialysis machine. And it's pretty cheap.

Anonymous said...

1:00 PM

"And it's pretty cheap"

£80 for 2Mbps, £20 for 0.5Mbps with a 5G limit - you being serious or just on another planet from the rest of us, or do you work for HIE!

Anonymous said...

1:00 PM : Troll alert...

Anonymous said...

I'm 1.00pm and I have never been so insulted in my life. I've done many things but I never have and never will work for HIE.

It's only money, people. If you don't want broadband, don't have it. I'm sure you'd learn to live without it.

Anonymous said...

1:00pm
"it's just internet access, not a dialysis machine. And it's pretty cheap."

Do you not realise how important internet access is to people nowadays & also now how important price is too.

£20 for 1MB connection is expensive when you can get 8MB ADSL broadband for £14.99 a month or package deals including line rental & free calls for about £30.

Also they are a heck of alot more reliable & they dont blame something outwith their control if it stops working.

I had to phone hebnet today as the internet wasnt working, they say it was a mast fault but couldnt say if it would be hours, days or weeks before it would be fixed, not very good customer services.

Anonymous said...

6.46 PM - "It's not they cannot get highspeed internet, its that BT were denied the state aid to do so."

Wrong - it's that BT decided there just wasn't enough economic return possible to spend the money required to upgrade the exchanges.

6.46 PM - "Considering at least half of these 21 exchanges would have given 100% coverage to residents at lower prices and quicker speeds, if they had been part of the 2005 initiative, you can see why the people in these affected areas are unhappy about this...and why nobody in authority wants to speak about this. They have royally fecked this up."

Again, wrong. What would happen is that some of those living closest to the exchange would get full ADSL with it rapidly falling off the further people got from the exchange with those furthest from the exchange most likely not actually being able to receive ADSL at all.

Being loudly unhappy but completely misinformed won't get anything useful done at all. BT have absolutely no interest in upgrading those exchanges at all until they get done as part of their 21CN rollout - no amount of whining or bleating is going to change that fact. I'd be more impressed with the petition if it was trying to achieve something useful - like getting scotnet to lower their prices for the Hebrides.net connections, but it isn't it is trying too turn back time, which is just a futile hope.

Regards
EddieH

Anonymous said...

It is correct that these exchanges do not have "enough economic return" for BT, which is why they required state aid to upgrade all the non commercial exchanges in 2005. We were excluded from this initiative because ConCom was going to provide for us. Almost four years later there are areas that still do not have broadband and at far greater expense than had the exchanges been upgraded.

I know one person, who is over 8Km from their exchange and they are getting 1.2M, while my sister, who is over 5Km away is getting 3M. Neither of them has experienced a week long breakdown as ConCom users just have.

Hebrides.net cannot lower their prices to be more competitive because the wholesale price they are charged by ConCom is more expensive than other ISP's are charging retail, unless of course they are given further subsidy, which begs the question how much money do they throw at this project to make it seem viable?
We are not "whining or bleating" but want some accountability in the way public money is spent.

Anonymous said...

10:06AM - "We were excluded from this initiative because ConCom was going to provide for us."

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.


"I know one person, who is over 8Km from their exchange and they are getting 1.2M, while my sister, who is over 5Km away is getting 3M."

I know a friend of a friend etc. etc. etc.

"Hebrides.net cannot lower their prices to be more competitive because the wholesale price they are charged by ConCom is more expensive than other ISP's are charging retail, unless of course they are given further subsidy, which begs the question how much money do they throw at this project to make it seem viable?"
Then ConComm need to lower their prices.

"We are not "whining or bleating" but want some accountability in the way public money is spent."

No, you just want ADSL, which ain't going to happen.

Anonymous said...

"Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong."

I have correspondence from both BT and HIE that state that BT were excluded from including these 21 exchanges in the 2005 initiative.

"I know a friend of a friend etc. etc. etc."

Unlike ConCom we actually did some research into the possibility of ADSL to provide us with broadband.

"Then ConComm need to lower their prices."

HIE have also just admitted in writing that they cannot lower their prices.

We have a situation here where households in ConCom blind spots are supposed to wait another four years before they get broadband, when they could have had a service almost four years ago! Damn right we want ADSL!

Anonymous said...

concomm have also stated that they cant lower their prices until a fibre cable is installed along the minch instead of relying on a dish at holm, That will help lower their running costs & then they will be able to pass on those saving but until then they cant make it any cheaper.

HIE were going to pay for that cable to be installed at a cost of about £70million but now that they found out BT need the fibre cable across the minch before they can do their 21CN upgrade (which will allow people to get 24mb broadband) HIE are holding off and are hoping BT will pay for the cable then concomm will piggyback onto it. Fly monkeys!

Its not like HIE trying to save money they are usually throwing it away.

"No, you just want ADSL, which ain't going to happen."

It is you know & to right we want ADSL where we can get great packages which include up to 8MB broadband, line rental, free call & free wireless router for about £20-30 a month & a reliable service unlike concomm offering for £25 a month, 1MB broadband with no extras & works like the people offshore, 2 weeks on & 2 weeks off.

Anonymous said...

The 21 WI exchanges were excluded from SE subsidy as Concom was hugely subsidised to provide HIE's system.

Atkins have had £1.4m in consultancy fees alone for design!

BT would have upgraded for subsidy of £1.2m and 15 exchanges would have 100% coverage out of the 21.

This was a threat to Concon,who have CNES HIE & WIHB & all other publicly funded bodies pouring money into Concom not only to set up Concom but to pay its running costs for a very poor service.

Concom was set up by people who have no practical working knowledge of telecoms--the idea sold to gullible councillors.

Why & how many are still waitlisted for service yet?

And are we to believe BT will put us anywhere in the Q for ADSL2 when the big money is in Concom.

Why Why Why???

answers in a brown envelope please

Anonymous said...

Concom mark 2 is coming too--plans are ongoing to pass over admin to a Voluntary group,they are lining up for more subsidy,under another heading of course!

More jobs for the boys,of course telecom experts abound in WIsles! LOL

Anonymous said...

SE assisted BT to upgrade 378 exchanges in 2005---job done for £16.5m-----expectations exceeded----from most exchanges low cost,reliable broadband reaches out 11km .In tendering for assistance BT were told to exclude 21 exchanges in western isles as Concom had already been assisted for these areas.

Anonymous said...

Detailed surveys have highlighted a greater number of out of reach areas than originally estimated due to the extreme nature of the topography and the distances involved.

Anonymous said...

Essential Maintenance [24/02/2009 10:44]

Due to emergency essential maintenance being carried out today at the South Harris mast site, there will be an interruption to service affecting all sites in North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist and Barra.

Anonymous said...

June 08 Report
How much Atkins has been paid by ConCom: the original estimated costs, and the costs of their services including any accrued costs?



Item

Paid
Budget

Market Research
A£8,860.26
N/A

Initial Feasibility
£14,908.40
£14,908.40

Main Build PM/Design
£583,835.25
£250,000.00

Mast Design

£84,162.08
Included in construction costs

Main Build Commissioning

£48,353.38
£39,270.00

Reimbursements^



Covers both the main build and the Infill phase.
£58,226.26
Included in construction costs



Infill PM/Design**




£87,227.21
£126,288.00

Infill Commissioning
£23,750.00
£63,672.00

Pathfinder Design
£1,350.00
N/A

Management Agency*
£374,144.65
£60,000.00 per annum

Network Surveillance*
28,748.90
£100,000.00 per annum




^ - costs that Atkins have incurred on HIE’s behalf such as planning application fees, electricity supply application charges, etc.

* - costs items that are annual operating expenditure.

Anonymous said...

The Western Isles 'Connected Communities' project is delivering services to locations from Ness in the north of Lewis to Castlebay in Barra in the south and at similar costs to broadband services in other parts of the Highlands & Islands.

Anonymous said...

The Herald - 19th August 2002
by Kay Smith

The Western Isles of Scotland are set to benefit from the most extensive wireless broadband network in the UK as the result of a search to find fast and cost effective telecommunication network for the remote and scattered region.

The choice of wireless over satellite or fibre-optic cables will offset limitations to the spread of broadband technology, now mainly delivered through underground fibre optic cabling - a method unsuitable for an area of difficult terrain and seascape.

The project’s backers say wireless networking also goes far beyond the possibilities of individual satellite dish technology.

Anonymous said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7910679.stm

today on the BBC news site:

Not everyone is convinced that mobile broadband is up to the job.

"Mobile broadband is not the replacement for fixed line broadband that everyone once thought," said Alex Salter, co-founder of broadband measurement site SamKnows.

"There are issues with the network and services drop off the more people who use it," he said.

"There are a couple of firms offering satellite broadband which has been touted as a solution for rural areas. It is not cheap though. Avanti offers a 2Mb service for £45 a month. (end of quote)

In case we haven't hammered it home, we pay £78.29/month for a 2Mb connection and have serious contention problems and a lot of downtime.

Anonymous said...

12.35am's comment (if anyone doesn't recognise it) is a quote from Concom's own website.

"Similar" = double or more, apparently.

Anonymous said...

"The Western Isles 'Connected Communities' project is delivering services to locations from Ness in the north of Lewis to Castlebay in Barra in the south and at similar costs to broadband services in other parts of the Highlands & Islands."

That is a straightforward lie.

Some places do not have a service. Other places have an unacceptably poor service. The cost is not similar to anywhere else.

So, it's a straightforward lie. Nothing more, nothing less.

Anonymous said...

Not really a lie, 12:05, just carefully phrased. 'Delivering services' would be true even if they only had one connection in Ness and one in Castlebay running at half a MB a week. Users just need to add their adjective of choice before the word 'services'.

In doublespeak the words 'similar to' can also be taken to mean 'similar but very different to'.

Anonymous said...

Have a look at www.unconnectedcommunities.co.uk

Anonymous said...

Who is running "www.unconnectedcommunities.co.uk"?

Anonymous said...

Started by someone called George Macleod. Its about time it was all out in the open what a farsh the whole con the communities project is & when bt upgrade every exchange in 2011 they will realise it was all a waste of tax payers money.

Anonymous said...

When SE invited tenders from BT to upgrade the "unviable" exchanges in 2004/5 BT were told to exclude the 21 that were to get Concom!

So BT were never refused subsidy for these the 21 Western Isle exchanges.

Ask "were they refused subsidy" HIE will not lie when they say they were not!!

Same result though.

In order to get £16.5m for 378 exchange upgrades BT had to exclude our 21 from their application.

Anonymous said...

Detailed surveys have highlighted a greater number of out of reach areas than originally estimated due to the extreme nature of the topography and the distances involved. While initial planning focused on a smaller number of locations it became evident that economies of scale could be achieved by undertaking this much larger deployment of sites now planned to cover 33 locations. The first five sites have been completed where existing buildings or infrastructure could be utilised to enable the relay sites to be installed. The remaining sites will require small relay masts and the planned build dates will now result in most sites being built by March 2008.

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm on one of the exchanges that was enabled for ADSL by BT and the maximum speed I can get out of ADSL is 512K downstream and 256K upstream.

Whereas through Hebrides.Net I am getting 2Mb upstream and Down - much better. I have also had less downtime with Connected Communities than I did with ADSL so I know that the service is better overall than ADSL is.

Regards
EddieH

Anonymous said...

MadEddieH are you wired right paying £79.99 for a 2mb broadband connection? either you are getting a good discount be trying to convince people that the service is amazing which most people know it certainly isnt or you have to much money for paying that much for broadband.

Anonymous said...

All you moaning --------s, would you all prefer still to be on dial-up.
Wireless broadband via Connected Communities is an excellent service - and if it goes down occasionally due to weather/powercuts/tech problems so the ---k what! its not the end of the world.

Anonymous said...

To the sad Anonymous coward,

Yes I pay £79.99 a month for a stable solid 2Meg synchronous connection.

Would I like the price to be lower - of course I would - how do we get the price lower? By getting more people signing up so that economies of scale kick in.

Why am I not going for a *mb unlimited for a tenner a month deal through ADSL? Well, that would be because contrary to the deluded rambling of some people ADSL just isn't that good a service.

Bleating and whing about getting exchanges enabled is a complete waste of time...why? Because ADSL up here is always going t be crap due to the simple physics of copper wire.

I do not get any discount for saying ConnCom is good, (though if someone wants to give me one I'm all ears) and I have very littel respect for someone who flings around accusations like that whilst hiding behind an anonymous tag - shame on you.

Regards
EddieH

Anonymous said...

EddieH - agree with U. As I said, @2:57pm, Wireless Broadband via Connected Communities is an excellent service and getting better. However speak to them(heb.net) about your service charge. I mean really speak to them - see if they can help!

OH, and Yes, ADSL is CRAP!

Anonymous said...

I was a Heb Net customer since it went live. I was lucky never to have problems and had a stable 1 mb connection. I now live in Stornoway and EddieH's comments made about ADSL being crap on the island is absolute drivel. I have a stable 7.7 mb connection (750m from exchange) and have since October on the STY exchange. A relative has 5mb on the Back exchange. Where did you get this info from???

Anonymous said...

To the latest Anonymous coward;

Where did I get this info from? from my own experience and knowledge. Yes you will get a great service in town but once you start getting out into the rural areas then it's a different story.

The simple fact of the matter is that the maximum speed of ADSL possible for me is 512Kb upstream.

Therefore I feel completely justified in pointing out that for the exchanges that haven't been ADSL enabled trying to make out that enabling them will somehow magically give everyone 8Mb broadband is just complete tosh.

ADSL is crap, not just on the island but across the country. That is why BT are doing their 21CN rollout. That is why Virgin are able to offer much better speeds on their network. That is why ConnComm offer better speeds (bear in mind that the upper limit for the ConnComm network is about 50Mb).

ADSL is an old technology that should be consigned to the dustbin as soon as possible.

If people want to try and get BT to do their 21CN rollout up here sooner rather than later then I'm all for that. What I am not in favour of is a bunch of neo-luddites trying to drive the communication infrastructure backwards by insisting on ADSL.

Regards
EddieH

Anonymous said...

My brother has a stable 5MB broadband connection in Bragar with BT & the download speeds are much faster then what I have seen on a 1MB heb.net connection.

I'd hate to see how much it would cost for a 50MB con comm connection when its £79.99 for only 2MB. They will never be able to provide speeds anywhere near that for an affordable cost.

They would have to get loads more funding for that since they arent making enough money to pay for providing broadband right down the isles which was supposed to happen years ago. HIE seem to have a bottomless pit of money to throw at con comm.

When BT roll out their 21CN network in the isles heb.net will lose most of their subscribers.

Anonymous said...

MadEddieH, have you been smoking some substances!!

Anonymous said...

To the sad Anonymous cowards;

I have no doubt that when BT do roll out 21CN that a lot of people will sign up.

That however probably isn't going to happen till late 2011.

The simple fact of the matter is that for a lot of users ConnComm is the only decent option for broadband.

Also regardless of your various ad hom attacks the simple fact of the matter is that the max speed I could get with ADSL is 512K and it was massively more unreliable than my ConnComm connection is. That is a fact and calling me a liar or saying I smoke things won't change that, no matter how much you wish it would.

Again, banging on about ADSL is just a complete waste of time and effort. Go sign PPs petition to get 21CN rolled out quicker, go beat up on HebNet to lower prices - I'll applaud you all the way - just don't expect any support for taking the infrastructure backwards via ADSL.

Regards
EddieH

Anonymous said...

Barra was down for nine days recently. Nine days.

Anonymous said...

Strong words Eddie

Simple fact is Concom ensured they have no competition-no other options

Your ADSL must have been with Scotnet that is another name for Concom-no wonder it was unreliable.

You had better keep taking your pills.

Anonymous said...

To the latest sad anonymous muppet;

My ADSL was through BT so if anyone could get the line to perform better it would have been them.

As for ConnComm being another name for scotnet, well again you are just showing your ignorance of the facts again.

ConnComm are the ones that own the infrastructure. Scotnet aka hebrides.net are simply an ISP using the infrastructure. Any company could be an ISP using the ConnComm infrastructure - if you think hebnet/scotnet charge too much set up your own ISP and buy the bandwidth off ConnComm.

You can stick to your sad ad hom sniping. Me I prefer to stick to the facts.

Regards
EddieH

Anonymous said...

If the con comm infrastructure & network is so amazing compared to ADSL why is BT, AOL, Tisaci, Sky etc not jumping onboard to offer broadband through the con comm network or using the same kind of wireless system throughout the country instead to the so called poor ADSL service that MadEddieH talks about? maybe they wouldnt be given the bottomless pit of money to keep the company running or maybe cos they know ADSL is a better way forward than a wireless system that is unreliable & slow.

MadEddieH said...

To the latest clueless anonymous muppet:
ADSL is not the way forward. BT's 21CN is basically an IP network running over fibre-optic lines. ADSL is a technology that runs over copper wires - wires which hopefully after 2011 won't exist anymore.

I'm all for 21CN and as I said, lets push for getting rolled out sooner rather than later.

ADSL however is a complete dead-end.

As to why BT, Tiscali etc offered an ISP service over ConnComm - simple, there aren't enough customers to justify it.

The simple fact of the matter is that for me to get anything above a 512K connection I have to use ConnComm/HebNet. That's right I can only get ADSL of 512K - that is a simple fact that is entirely due to the obsolete technology involved in ADSL.

Let's stop whining about ADSL and start pushing for 21CN while thumping ConnComm/HebNet to lower their prices. That is the only course of actiopn that is at all worthwhile. Any pursuit of getting more ADSL exchanges is just a waste of time as it ain't ever going to happen.

Regards
EddieH

Anonymous said...

"Me I prefer to stick to the facts."

MadEddieH

Nearly fell off my chair when I read that one!!

Anonymous said...

While there has been a considerable improvement of broadband service/broadband quality in the UK, the delay in implementing BT’s fiber-optic network is starting to impact upon future broadband speed forecasts for the UK. The multi-billion pound project should see around 40% per cent of the UK population enjoying speeds of between 40Mb and 60Mb by 2012.

Will we be in the first 40%-answers on a postcard,LOL

The unconnected 21 will never see 21CN too much at stake for Conco.

People like the Eddie blogger,sing loudly off the Conco hymsheet,another one of the wunch of bankers that are holding Western Isles to ransom

Anonymous said...

when is the petition to brussels to go in?

Anonymous said...

SORRY CHAPS WHILE WE WERE ASLEEP COCO WENT OFF (AGAIN)



Supply fault at Muir Of Aird



[07/04/2009 9:3]

During the night there was a supply fault at Muir if Aird. This is affecting customers served from Muir of Aird and all sites south of that including Liniclate, Eochar, Howmore, Greian, Castlebay, Glendale and Eriskay.

Connected Communities apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Once again but no rebates & no-one will answer the phone if you call after hours.

Normal service is to be off quite often really,tough tooty

Anonymous said...

Clachan Update [14/04/2009 11:12]

Engineers are now en-route to Clachan in order to resolve a packet loss issue.

Carinish Fault now cleared [14/04/2009 11:11]

The fault at Carinish has now been cleared. The issue was due to a power outage.Which was not our fault but perhaps we should have had back-up,never mind our customers cant get anyone else anyway

Anonymous said...

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/betterbroadband/