Mast in Horningsham BA12 7LD. No mobile cover rely on BT "At Risk" back-up.

[Horningsham01]

Good morning.

A major fan of BT / EE and customer for 45 years.  Our village is going digital but many have no mobile signal whatsoever.  Those "At Risk" currently use BT's copper back-up but that's ending. 

This is by no means a complaint.  BT & Wessex Internet are competing to digitise the Village.  Wessex were due to deliver in late 2024, then held a village meeting promising Spring 2026.  Now received email to say work BEGINS POSSIBLY Autumn.  Some people are connecting via Star Link. 

Obviously Virgin Media were fined very heavily for failing to protect those at risk, as has BT in the past.  Looking at your excellent website IF mobile coverage could be established then all those vulnerable can hand back your transformer and phone device and move to the BT mobile solution.  Not a device to look super-cool at Glastonbury but it is for emergencies! 

St John The Baptist Church is grade II* and its tower used to have a flagpole but that rotted and blew down in  a storm.  It sits high above the village and will reach most if not all those with no signal.  The BT map is over-optimistic and OFCOM's seems more accurate. I know as have two EE mobiles.  

Our proposal all subject to overall village agreement that should be easy given the upside.

• BT protects the vulnerable by installing a stealth transmitter on the church tower that also doubles as a flagpole.
• There is space for "the kit" to be inside the tower / church / belfry.
• We can publicise and arrange a meeting in our village hall for you to explain your broadband intentions, including the vulnerable.  I would also advise that you have an EE rep there.  BT is now so joined up that surely once people know that all is dealt with immediately you will get  more mobile customers because it's all about just making a single call!
• Subject to my fellow Facebook Administrator who is the Lead on our Community site agreeing, you can have the banner slot for free for a month to get you as many customers as possible.
• Tower access can be arranged at the drop of a hat.  Its key lives a few hundred yards away in the hands of a very amenable church warden.  Easy.
• If getting permission to spend peanuts on hall hire might delay, or even if you want the banner for longer than a month, they can be "fixed".
• The signal might reach Maiden Bradly and even Frome and of course the massive footfall at Longleat is in direct view too.

You operator said this forum is the only route in so presumably BT will contact me direct on +44 7** *** **6. 

Serendipity for all maybe?  

Kind regards.

JB

 "****y" 

[XRaySpeX]

No one will contact you from this user discussion group other than thro' the medium of these forums by posts such as this. Anyway we haven't the faintest idea who you are.

[bristolian]

I admire your motivation for this post, a few pointers that may be useful. Usually, network rollout is driven by planners wanting to improve coverage in a given area who initiate a search from where process progresses. Organised community demand can sometimes achieve the same, but this needs to extend to the local planning authority.

Who are the freeholders/landowners for the church in question, for it's they who would need to be involved in both legal & practical discussions? Some church authorities also have existing umbrella agreements for installations such as this.

There are a few options for antenna placement, this can sometimes depend on structural considerations but also - often siginificantly - local authority planning. Longleat itself is an interesting one, there may be capacity considerations here which then impact site & install design.

[Horningsham01]

Thank you BristolIan. 

Most helpful. I've annotated below.  I had a lengthy conversation with EE and they called around their organisation but concluded I had to post here to get a response. 

Usually, network rollout is driven by planners wanting to improve coverage in a given area who initiate a search from where process progresses. Organised community demand can sometimes achieve the same, but this needs to extend to the local planning authority.  DRIVEN MY REALISATION THAT VULNERABLEPERSONS SET-UP IS BEING USED AS SOME HAVE NO MOBILE COVERAGE.  BROADBAND IN THIS AREA CAN FAIL AND I SPENT TWO HOURS IN THE EARLY HOURS AS A GUINEAU PIG IN A MAJOR RESET ORGANISED FROM PLYMOUTH.

I WILL CONTACT THE PLANNERS.  GOOD IDEA THANK YOU.          

Who are the freeholders/landowners for the church in question, for it's they who would need to be involved in both legal & practical discussions? Some church authorities also have existing umbrella agreements for installations such as this. SHIS IS ALL COVERERED.   TOTAL AGREEMENT.   

There are a few options for antenna placement, this can sometimes depend on structural considerations but also - often significantly THE FLAGPOLE FITTINGS ARE THERE.  ALSO A LIGHTENING CONDUCTOR BUT THAT IS A BT ISSUE OVER USAGE.  THE VILLAGE HAS PLANS TO BUY A FIBRE FLAGPOLE BUT THE CHURCH CANNOT HAVE TWO.  THE BELFRY IS NOT ENTIRELY SAFE SO A FLAGPOLE IS THE OBVIOUS.    - local authority planning. Longleat itself is an interesting one, there may be capacity considerations here which then impact site & install design  THE CHURCH HAS HAD A FLAGPOLE FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS.  THERE ARE ALSO THE GUESTS AT THE BATH ARMS HOTEL TO CONSIDER.  NO INDOOR COVERAGE YET IN DIRECT LINE OF SIGHT OF CHURCH.  SO THAT WOULD WORK.  LONGLEAT BALLOON FESTIVAL OFTEN JAMS THE NETWORK AS 000S ATTEND.

REALLY APPREFCIATE YOUR HELP THANK YOU.       

[Horningsham01]

Dear XRaySprx.  

Thank you for replying.  Please see my detailed reply to BristolIan.  I am only going by what EE told me on Friday. 

Thank you for the numbers.  We will try them.   

With regard to your comment "Anyway we haven't the faintest idea who you are"

WHO EXACTLY ARE "WE" AS I DON'T HAVE THE FAINTEST CLUE WHO YOU ARE EITHER.  BUT AT LEAST YOU KNOW SOMEW NUMBERS!  THANK YOU.    

WE WERE ASSUMING THAT BT WOULD CONTACT US VIA EE KNOWING OUR MOBIULE NUMBER.BT  - THE LANDLINE NUMBER ASSOCIATED WITH THIS ENQUIRY IS +44 1985 *** 700. 

THAT PHONE STAYS UPSTAIRS  FOR AT RISK / EMERGENCIES ONLY AS THE INTERIOR WALLS ARE 2FT THICK AND WON'T TRAVEL.  MOBILE IS RUNNING ON BROADBAND BOOSTERS. 

Kind regards.  Horningsham01     

[bristolian]

Briefly...

Posting in all capitals on the internet is widely regarded as shouting, and thus rude - please be careful of your caps lock, the forum has a quotes option.

I absolutely admire your cause here, but customer-services purpose is not to provide a gateway into the non-customer-facing technical & planning organisation.  EE staff on here often take some basic details for passing on, but this will usually be by forum private message not telephone call.

[Chris_S]

Hi @Horningsham01 

Thanks for getting in touch with us about this.

I'd like to get this matter escalated to our specialist team, who deal with requests such as this.

I'll send over a private message to take some details, so keep an eye out for a new message in your EE Community inbox.

Chris S

[XRaySpeX]

We are a public user discussion group of private usually EE users like you who in their own time like discuss & help others with EE services.

There is no need to shout. If you want to embed your comments amongst ours use colour.

[Horningsham01]

Hi XRay,  

My humble apologies.  Mainly use Apps on Microsoft Office  / 365 on PC / Laptop multi-screen set-ups and on those formats the text colour option isn't exactly writ large!  However the forum is a lot better than coping with WhatsApp format on PC that is akin to LinkedIn issues of yonks ago fast resolved.  On WhatsApp it's forever required to apologise for the lack of speeling, punktuasean and grama. 

If any offence was caused by capitalisation, humble apologies.  Two decades of running a highly successful City business is partly thanks to an obsession with Outlook that we thrash to 90% of its overall intended potential.  Part of that is it automatically recording annotates with an indent, Initials, and a font colour by team.  An efficient and transparent audit trail.   

We will now use font colour on this forum and thank you for pointing it out.  Kind regards.  

Horningsham01  .  

[Horningsham01]

XRaySpeX   Good moring.  Thank you for being so helpful to date.  Amazing. 

Before I post this in a Broadband section, dare I ask for your views first?  May get further then.  You of course credited.  THis when correct might be useful to many rural areas in same boat.   

EE Community.  As a newbie thank you very much for all the responses to date, especially that from XRaySpeX  who has been incredibly reposnive and a massive help.  [HOW DO I MAKE YOU AL LINK WHEN I POST IN GENERAL] A mast proposal is moving forward and a key issue is unravelling the true advantages of the entire village rushing to the Wessex Internet side of the ship without due consideration.  Also, cost matters to many residents especially the older ones.  Now after some more help if anyone has time! 

Below is a guide to help residents get the most out of the current BT copper-wire Broadband, and possibly downgrade the urgency to commit to a 24 month contract with a new fibre supplier that may not have all of the BT benefits or legal requirements to protect the vulnerable.  For the moment cost is left out of the Post as it needs further research.  Wessex will charge £7.97 - £14.95 monthly for a landline capability and keeping the original landline number. 

Proposed message to 175 Horningsham households via Facebook Community Page. 

Hi

1. Gleaned from  BT technician whilst being a guinea pig whist the BT fibre network was being repaired in the early hours of a morning.  Restart router every two weeks in case the  "cake principle” is at work.  The “cake principle” is that on certain especially older routers visitors with devices that access reduce the proportion of bandwidth available to householder / business.  When those visitors leave, it could be that the router does not restore householder / business to 100% of bandwidth.  So, if your teenage children have four friends visit, that might be eight devices that might permanently slow your own access down unless you act. 
2. Fast internet is NOT Restore and all should invest in at least one external hard drive and set it to regularly record Restore hard drive data and also computer  and settings.  Ideally buy two, store one offsite, and swap regularly.  Hard drive failure is then not a big or expensive issue. 
3. Your choice  - contributor uses Toshiba Canvio 1TB from John Lewis £79.99 online.  Smaller than an iPhone.  Beware finding a cheaper version without checking it’s the latest model.  Canvio comes with easy to use software installed.  There are different versions for Mac and PC.  Choose the size of storage to suit your needs. 
4. You do not necessarily have to live-stream to download films.  Set to do whilst asleep!   [NB for EE community author doesn’t really watch films at home so no clue / experience really]. 
5. Decide what needs to be updated regularly to Cloud / sharing on Office 365 or Google Docs and what is historic / fixed.  Keep fixed files in a separate Office 365 / Google area and also on the external hard drive(s).  Office 365 then even works at 1 MBS upload with thousands of files. 
6. Take advantage of BT's At Risk facility / hardware.  On the copper-wire broadband that Horningsham has currently, this involves an uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) that offers four hours of battery back-up that will keep the router open to telephone calls down the wire.  The latest version is a small white cube.  If you still have a black UPS its battery is probably ageing and you should ask EE for an upgrade. 
7. When BT fibre is installed, BT will offer the vulnerable a hybrid landline telephone with a built-in SIM that will also access mobile networks. 
8. Plans are afoot within the village the achieve full EE mobile coverage via a stealth (as in hidden) mast.  That way, even if the fibre network fails, the vulnerable can still call for help plus all on EE will get full-on coverage whilst driving in / out etc. 
9. Given that EE will be the next or perhaps the first broadband supplier to the village, if buying a new mobile contract, look at the OFCOM coverage map at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/mobile-coverage-checker .  EE isn't great in the village and is exaggerated, but it's still the best at 69%.  It's actually nearer 30% indoors from what has been established.  All other mobile networks worse. 
10. If buying a SIM-only mobile to control children, buy from an EE MVNO (i.e.one that piggy-backs on EE) for when the village gets a mast / connected. 

All amends, comments, criticism welcome!  Thank you.