BT Fibre Pulls Out of Chelsea Over Ugly Equipment Cabinets

judgecorp writes "The up-market London borough of Kensington and Chelsea has lost its chance for BT fast fibre. After residents objected to the ugly fibre cabinets, and the council repeatedly refused permission to install them in historic sites, BT has said the borough will not get its fast BT Infinity product at all. The borough says it doesn't need BT, as Richard Branson's Virgin Media has got it more or less covered."

Comments

Aesthetics

[scarboni888]

Every time aesthetics trumps functionality I get just a little bit sadder.

Re:Aesthetics

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstworldproblem indeed.
I just moved to Canary Wharf and considering it is the largest financial sector area in Europe, I'm amazed that I have the suckiest Internet connection I have experienced since approx 1995.
Can you believe it: No fiber possible, max bandwidth (irrespective of "competition"): 1-2 Mb/s.
I should have stayed in Zambia where 1) throughput was better - and - 2) if the ISP sucks, you can always fall back on 4G.
4G has not even been deployed in the UK yet (but is readily available for a humane price in Lusaka).

Re:Agreed

[MightyYar]

Couldn't they have made them into the shape of the old red payphones? This seems like the company was being a bit arrogant.

Re:Agreed

[icebike]

This type of Infrastructure stays around for 50 years on average, and there's no need to accept such crappie equipment strewn all over the landscape because once in, you are stuck, they will never improve or replace them.

If you don't force them to do it right the first time, it will look like hell forever.

I have a ground mounted transformer, a telephone cabinet , a cable company cabinet all sitting in my front yard, all because the subdivision builder granted them easements. The service companies bitch where I shroud them with Rhodies.

Sounds Like SF

[cis4]

This same issue came up over AT&T wanting to install boxes in SF. Google SF ATT Boxes.

As much as I hate NIMBY's, they have a good point here. If you're going to build something on public land, at least make it pleasant, unobtrusive, or both. Otherwise, buy the property and stop relying on the public to subsidize your business.

I still don't get why utility boxes have to be so ugly. How difficult is it to make a box look appealing?

FFS

[icebraining]

The borough says it doesn't need BT, as Richard Branson's Virgin Media has got it more or less covered.

Yeah, and who needs competition, we all know monopolies are the best way to ensure low prices and good services, am I right?

I understand that the boxes may be ugly, but that statement is utterly moronic.

Re:They aren't ugly

[FireFury03]

The (rather wealthy) area already has access to *faster* full-fibre technology broadband. Virgin cable is a full fibre service, whereas this is "fibre to the cabinet": BT lay the fibre to these new cabinets, and then use copper as normal, using VDSL technology.

I know Virgin have been advertising "fibre optic internet" for many years, but no, it isn't "full" fibre, its basically just FTTC. The only real difference between Virgin's and BT's network is that BT runs fibre to the cabinet and then VDSL over a copper pair to the premises whilst Virgin run fibre to the cabinet and then do DOCSIS over coax... Wake me up when FTTP gets widespread.

Re:Agreed

[ATMD]

I was on UKFSN when I lived with people, but had to switch to a cheaper ISP when I started living on my own. If I could afford it I'd definitely go back, though - proper business-grade ADSL, a /29 subnet, fantastic latency and great customer support (it's run by a geek in his garage).

That was a couple of years ago so it may have changed, but I'd certainly be willing to try them again if I had the chance.