Faster Broadband: First islanders upgraded

Hundreds of island households will get faster broadband services next week.

Cable & Wireless has worked with local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to select around 600 customers to become the first to be upgraded as part of an advanced deployment of new faster broadband. Feedback from those customers will determine the schedule at which the whole-island roll out progresses.

Russell Sharman, Cable & Wireless’ Chief Technical Officer, said:

“Testing of the broadband upgrade has progressed positively in recent weeks. We are now ready to commence a controlled initial roll-out. If the ISPs report no problems then we will commence upgrading other customers in batches over the coming weeks. Our aim throughout this process is to be confident before we upgrade customers that they will receive a better browsing experience with no disruption to their existing broadband service.”

Cable & Wireless is investing £2.5 million to upgrade Guernsey’s wholesale broadband network to enable download speeds of up to 2 megabits per second (Mbps) for most households and up to 8Mbps for some business users. There will be no additional cost to either ISPs or their customers.

Mr Sharman explained that the customers who are first to be upgraded have been carefully chosen:

“We have worked closely with the ISPs to choose customers whose households sit together on our exchanges, so that we can test various impacts of the new software. All customers affected should be contacted by their ISP.”

For a 2Mb service, customers generally need to be within 4km (kilometres) of their exchange, and for an 8Mb service within 2.5km. Any further away and they are likely to experience slower speeds.

Currently around 90% of homes in the island are less than 4km from their exchange, so should be able to receive 2Mb service without any problems. However, some areas of the island have very long lines which will not support the new line rates. Cable & Wireless is currently seeking planning permission to install equipment in kerbside cabinets in these areas to reduce the line length to customers, and increase the attainable bandwidth. This will initially bring all homes within the 4km limit, and eventually within 2.5km, to enable all island households to access the faster services.

The current 1Mbps service is available virtually universally in Guernsey. To overcome line-length limitations for higher speeds, we are changing the network to support Rate Adaptive services, which will permit individual customer lines to support the maximum rate they can achieve.

For residential users, around 90% of customers can achieve the full 2Mbps line rate under the upgraded service. Rate adaption will enable the remaining 10% to get the maximum that their line will support up to 2Mbps, whether that be 1.1Mbps, or 1.9Mbps.

For the higher speed business services, around 50% of customers are within a 2.5km line length range, so should achieve the full 8M service.

Due to the limited line lengths in the islands, current broadband services in the Bailiwick are provided on a fixed rate configuration. Rate Adaption allows a line to sync up to the maximum rate which it will support, while maintaining a sufficient “noise margin” to maintain stability over any electrical interference.

The attainable bandwidth of ADSL decreases as line length increases, and is also more susceptible to external electrical noise and wiring quality issues as bandwidth increases.

To overcome these variables, it is essential that the network is able to adapt to the line conditions, which may vary over time and provide the fastest and most stable service possible.

There are several things which islanders should check before contacting their ISP:

- Check that your line is within range – check our coverage maps for your service. If your line is in or near a red area, then your line may not support the full line rate, but will reach the maximum it can support.

- Ensure that you have a micro-filter or splitter installed in every telephone socket being used in your property – don’t forget about Sky receivers, fax machines, answerphones etc.

- Do not use excessively long extension leads, or run extension leads from a splitter. Poor quality wiring is a major cause of DSL problems.

- Check that your modem / router is correctly configured and has the most recent firmware installed.

- If you’ve checked all of the wiring, but the service still appears slow, you may have a line fault. Call your ISP who will be able to check your service, and contact Cable & Wireless in order to check the line if required. Cable & Wireless is responsible for the line up to and including the Network Terminating Point (NTP) within your property. This is usually the master socket or first point of entry into your property. If a fault is found within the Cable & Wireless part of the network, it will be repaired free of charge.