What happened to Shrewsbury ?
Or are the business on battlefields and the north side of town of little importance ?

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Can we just be clear about what is REALLY happening !! – It IS NOT a FIBRE OPTIC connection to “you” or your premises that is being provided.

What BT are doing is called

“Fibre To The Cabinet” or: “FTTC” as its known “In the Trade”

So.. in essence, High speed Fibre connectivity is being brought “closer to you” and it works like this ….

Now – actually, as far the end user is concerned – essentially, nothing is changing!!
You will still have the same pair of phone wires coming to your house /property

As Double D correctly points out …

Traditional “Broadband” or more correctly, Assymetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) uses your phone line – and …. the longer that line is to the exchange (where the existing Broadband equipment, known as a “DSLAM” is installed) – the slower “that part” of your internet connection will be.

NOW – what FTTC does is to “essentially” MOVE that “ADSL/DSLAM” equipment OUT of the exchange to more “local” points “in the phone line distribution network” – that is new distribution “cabinets” in the street(s).

(that is essentailly where yours and other phone lines are connected/join up to to main distribution cabling there after en route to the exchange)

(AND of course …This equipment in the “cabinet” being fed by high speed fibre optic connectivity! hence FTTC!)

SO … IF this “cabinet” JUST SO HAPPENS to be close to your premises THEN the EFFECTIVE length of your phone line, inso far as ADSL is concernced, is most likely MUCH Shorter than before, and hence – the “broadband” or ADSL speed will be much higher as a result

(not forgetting that its “fibre” from there on)

But this ADSL speed will only be signifcantly ONLY IF, AND ONLY IF: the cabinet HAPPENS to be “relatively” close(r) to you!!

AND ONLY IF your phone line happens to be already connnected in such a way – as in some cases, FTTC cannot be provided!!)

And so.. IF you are lucky enough to be connected via FTTC – please, please, do bear in mind that a complete internet connection path from you,to say a distant website etc is made up of many different connection paths, of which the “ADSL” conection to the FTTC cabinet (and fibre there after), is ONLY the FIRST hop – and so the overall speed of connection is STILL controlled by other “unchanged” factors in the chain beyond yours or BT control!!!

(A bit like providing a 10 lane motorway “just for you” from your front door to the oswestry section of the A5!
…
That 10 lane motorway won’t make much difference to your overall journey time when you want to actually go to say London or Manchester or worse still say Europe/USA ! say!!

And the internet works in exactly the same way!

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