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" 

[Horningsham01]

XRaySpeX   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. 

EE Community.  As a newbie thank you very much for all the responses to date, especially that from XRaySpeX  who has been incredibly resposive 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. 

[Horningsham01]

bristolian   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. 

EE Community.  As a newbie thank you very much for all the responses to date, especially that from XRaySpeX  and Bristolian who have been incredibly responsive and a massive help.  [HOW DO I MAKE YOU A 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. 

[ee_user14]

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@Horningsham01 wrote:

[HOW DO I MAKE YOU AL LINK WHEN I POST IN GENERAL] 

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You don't need to link to any individual poster unless you specifically want to tag that individual. All posts on this forum are visible to every user.

Point 1: Routers remembering devices and reducing bandwidth, this sounds like some very dodgy router software and certainly not something I've ever experienced. Either that, or just a good way to explain "reboot your router" in laymans terms.

Point 10: Not sure why you should automatically recommend an MVNO. They suit some people, but have pros & cons compared with network-direct. Try recommending an EE safer SIM - https://ee.co.uk/mobile/safer-sims 

[Horningsham01]

That's a very good point and actioned EE Safer Sim BHUT with caveat that if budget really is an issue then maybe MNVO. 

I am a danger to the world has have some knowledge but not full!  I own a Financial PR firm called Abchurch and we've had doznes of telco-related clients over two decades.  I was present when the first ever SMS in the world was sent from Sema Group's  Plc's offices in Paris.  It was a thank you lunch party to advisers and the technician sent the SMS from his PC to a Vodafone Director as a joke as he was at a Voda party.  Never of course seen alpha on a mobile before.  Little did we know .

Thank you for replying.  I am Mr LinkedIn and don't get this forum's logic at all.  That Post was supposed to be a private message!

Thanks again.  What charming people are on here. 

JB aka Bozzy    ...   .   .       

[ee_user14]

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@Horningsham01 wrote:

Thank you for replying.  I am Mr LinkedIn and don't get this forum's logic at all.  That Post was supposed to be a private message!

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To be fair, I don't see anything in your posts that merits a private message. Nothing personal is being disclosed or discussed, and the questions you've asked are worthy of any user on this board.

[XRaySpeX]

Points 2 & 3: Why recommend to your users o buy an extra hard drive just to use BB. There better reasons for getting an extra hard drive depending on personal preferences.

The whole thing's airy-fairy & probably incomprehensible to the average villager.