| December
2007 |
| ADSL Max for Plockton has now been scheduled
for January 2008 (indicative). Here
is the full schedule for the exchanges to be upgraded. |
| November
2007 |
| ADSL Max for Plockton
has been set back to first quarter
2008. |
| August
2007 |
| Plockton is scheduled to receive the upgrade in November 2007. |
| April
2007 |
| Against our expectation, we are pleased to let you know that the
forthcoming upgrade in Plockton will not be for more Exchange Activate
ports, but a move to full platform ADSL — ADSL
Max (see below). |
| This will give customers a faster connection, a greater choice of
ISP, and access to the full range of services available to urban areas,
including internet/telephone 'bundles'. |
| This
page at the Scottish Executive website has the list of
the rural communities in line for the upgrade. |
| April
2007 |
| It has been announced recently by the Scottish Executive that funds
will be availabe to upgrade/expand twenty rural communities currently
experiencing capacity problems with Exchange Activate ADSL broadband. |
| Plockton is on the list and we expect that everyone
currently hoping to move up to broadband will be able to so. |
| We do not have a timescale yet, or even what type of upgrade will
be done. While more Exchange Activate ports would be welcome, we would
hope that the opportunity will be taken to bring Plockton and other
rural communities up to broadband speeds as experienced elsewhere,
including Kyle, in other words, ADSL Max. |
| Exchange Activate is a 'low-cost' way of connecting rural communities
to the broadband network. It is limited to a (theoretical) speed of
512Kb download. |
| ADSL Max is the current technology for larger exchanges and promises
up to 8Mb download (revised down to 5Mb by OFTEL after misleading
advertising) and generally gives 2–4Mb download. |
| March
2007 |
| The introduction of broadband Internet access in Plockton gave customers
the choice of three Internet Service Providers — Scotnet, BT
and AOL. Given the nature of our broadband (Exchange Activate), the
number of ports available was limited — Scotnet took the most,
followed by BT and a handful to AOL. |
| Until the start of this year, there were sufficient ports, but now
all ISPs have used their quota, and no more broadband connections
can be made in the short-term future. |
| In addition, a number of potential broadband customers were frustrated
by BT, whose systems reported wrong information on the number of ports
available and the type of broadband in Plockton. |
| Some of these were able to be connected by Scotnet, and, in one
case, by AOL. |
| But now all the three ISPs' quota of ports has been used, and it
remains to be seen what happens next. |
| There is a full account of how Plockton achieved
broadband here. |
