The Swanage Exchange was upgraded earlier this year and now supports 21CN WBC.

This means broadband users should get much faster download and upload speeds. Some users might get close to 24Mbps, but most will probably see double their existing speed.

What is “21CN”?
21CN (21st Century Network) is a Next Generation Network (NGN) being deployed by British Telecom over the next 5 years. The core aim of the project is to bring the UK’s telecoms network in to the digital age, whilst at the same time allowing BT to save up to £1billion per year in costs. The total cost of the project is estimated at £10billion.

The following are some of the key changes that 21CN will bring:

• The national PSTN phone network will be moved on to a digital IP network
• The retirement of 16 existing legacy networks and the introduction of a single “multi-service” network
• The national roll-out of ADSL2+, offering services at up to 24Mbps. ADSL2+ Annex M will also be deployed, offering upstream rates of up to 2.5Mbps
• A complete overhaul of the broadband services offered. A range of new configurable QoS (Quality of Service) products will be made available

In recent years BT has seen its traditional revenue sources (i.e. phone calls) decline considerably, and its “new wave” products (such as broadband) explode in popularity. Ultimately, 21CN should help BT to surf this new wave of demand and reduce their dependence on traditional revenue streams.

Source: SamKnows.com — 21CN Overview: More details about BT Wholesale 21CN

Swanage ADSL status:
ADSL Max status: Enabled as of 01/10/2003
SDSL status: Enabled as of 31/03/2006
21CN WBC status: Enabled 2012

A lot of people (possibly everybody) in the Purbeck Area are experiencing wild fluctuations in broadband speed again. To be fair, broadband speed results are never the same from one test to the next, but over the last three to four weeks my speeds have varied from a good 6 MB (6000 kbps) to an appalling 0.8 MB (900 kbps) in less than 30 mins… then back to 6 MB again an hour later.

Consistency in speed appears to be the number one problem (frustration) here in the Isle of Purbeck.

A number of people are running speed tests on a regular bases – I personally run hour tests using www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk as it keeps a record of all your tests and also allows you to export the results.

We would like to hear from anybody in the Purbeck area (Wareham through to Swanage) who is also experiencing fluctuating broadband speeds.

Please leave a comment below, stating your broadband supplier and a brief overview of the best and worst speeds.

Tiscali customers are facing a second day of frustration as their phone lines are moved/migrated to TalkTalk.

Purbeck Broadband has heard from a number of customers who have no phone or broadband service. When speaking to customer support, they are told disruptions could last 24 hours, the same answer was given last week!

Are you a Tiscali user? Have any thoughts good or bad?

Last nights Broadband outage that affected (some?) users in the Isle of Purbeck, appears to have been caused by planed engineering work in Reading by BT.

The outage lasted around two hours and appears to have come back on at 1.50am (approx.).

Speeds seem normal, although there has been some fluctuation over the last few days again!

If you are experiencing slow broadband today, chances are it is due to the Election Coverage. As remarkable as it sounds, there are countrywide reports of general slowness and BT and ISPs (Internet Service Provides) are attributing the problem to a higher than normal use of the internet!

Normal service should resume once the mess is sorted out!