On the ladder

 Personal  No Responses »
Nov 292011
 

Continuing the resurrection on this blog (two posts in two weeks!) I thought I better write a quick note about probably the most important thing to happen to me in the past few years and that’s getting on the housing ladder. Back in October Jordan and I completed the purchase of our first proper home together.

It’s in Wolverton – one of the old towns that was assimilated into Milton Keynes in the 1970s. We wanted an old house as they have a bit more character and history than a lot of the new builds as well as a lot more space. There seems to be a greater feeling of community in these old areas that you just don’t get in the rest of Milton Keynes. You actually see people walking around in the streets which is pretty rare in Walnut Tree where we are now.

The lady that lived in the house before us had been there since 1965 and from the looks of things very little has been done in the last four and a half decades. It made the place pretty horrible to look at when we first saw it but it also means it has a load of original features intact like cast iron fireplaces in the bedrooms and quarry tiles in the back room (hidden under some lovely carpet – pictured right). We’re also going to have the floorboards exposed throughout most of the house. Half because they’re nice and half because we have a cat that seems intent on murdering anything we can get his teeth round which tends to make quite the mess of carpet.

There’s a whole load of work to be done so we’re not going to be moving in for quite some time. The house doesn’t even have central heating. It’s quite daunting when you think about all the things that need to be done and all the things that need to be bought. In fact, we made a spreadsheet of everything we needed to buy and the total was rather shocking. It may have to be Super Noodles for dinner from now until next summer. And I’m sure every time I look at the kitchen sink I’ll think to myself “that was £250 well spent… I could have bought a PlayStation Vita with that”.

 

 

 

Milton Keynes FTTP Trial Comes To an End

 Fibre Optic Broadband, Geek  No Responses »
Nov 242011
 

*Wordpress lost the first version of this post so this is the hastily rewritten version*

Last November I got involved with Openreach’s FTTP (Fibre to the premises) trial in Milton Keynes. It’s been a great year testing a ridiculously fast internet connection but it’s now sadly come to an end. BT have started offering a commercial product based on the technology so I assume the trial was a success.

The trial wasn’t handled directly by BT or Openreach. Instead I had to get connected by one of the smaller ISPs involved in the trial. It was through them that I learnt the trial was ending. They supplied me with prices for if I wished to keep the connection and stay with them.

I’ll focus on the lower scale of the pricing. The products based on the product I was trialling (100Mb down and 30Mb up) are going to be too high for most people (it starts at 78 + VAT a month). The consumer focussed product is 115 down and 14 up and comes in at £60 (it’s unknown whether this will require a phone line as yet so you might need to add £10 on to it). The same product from BT costs £35 but does require a phone line so its basically £45.

This is too much to pay. We’re looking at possibly £70 a month from a smaller ISP and £45 a month if you sell your soul to BT. Most people aren’t going to be able to afford paying that much for broadband. What’s the point in spending billions of pounds hooking everyone up to a fibre network and then pricing the majority of people out? This is why we shouldn’t leave developing the country’s infrastructure to private companies. Incidentally it would be interesting to find out why the discrepancy between BTs price and the price from the small ISP is so large. Are small ISPs being screwed by wholesale prices or are BT using their clout to sell the product at a loss?

I’m actually moving out of the area next year so this speed won’t be available to be me but the same problem is there for the slower FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) technology that covers most of the country. BT offer it for £28 a month which isn’t too bad but if you want to avoid BT you pay more than double for a limited service.

And who doesn’t want to avoid BT?