What, when, how, why?
Roll up, roll up, get your answers here:
- How do we make superfast broadband so... well, super fast?
- How fast is superfast broadband?
- The fastest broadband on my estate — or my money back?
- How much does it cost?
- What about my phone service?
- Do you offer call packages?
- How much do calls cost?
- Why are we doing this?
- What, you want the in-depth nitty gritty technical details?
- Really? I've tried before and haven't been able to get superfast broadband here.
- A free oatcake? / What is an oatcake?
How do we make superfast broadband so... well, "super fast"?
It's all about the distance — the shorter the distance, the greater the speed. Superfast works by reducing what is known as the "local loop", or the distance that your broadband service needs to travel from source to your home.
A picture paints a thousand words as they say, so take a look at the diagram below which uses our St Edwards Park project as an example. The first bit shows the "before" situation. The broadband service travels all the way (a whole 1.2 miles) from the Cheddleton BT exchange to the green PCP box at the entrance to East Drive. That's a hefty trip in broadband terms.
Now let's look at how the picture changes with a Superfast connection. Instead of travelling from the BT exchange, the broadband is sourced from our fibre cabinet (next to the green PCP box). That cuts out 1.2 miles from the journey, resulting in a much shorter local loop. And that's how you get the nippy connection you've been waiting for.
How fast is superfast broadband?
What we all really want to know is how long will it take to download a song, a TV show or a HD film. The table below gives you a rough idea (these are estimates) of download times for a given connection speed.
| Type of download | Size | 5Mbps | 10Mbps | 50Mbps | 100Mbps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 minute song | 4MB | 6 sec | 3 sec | Instant | Instant |
| 45 minute show | 200MB | 5 min 30 sec | 3 min | 35 sec | 16 sec |
| 45 minute HD show | 600MB | 17 min | 8 min 30 sec | 2 min | 1 min |
| 2 hour movie | 1.5GB | 43 min | 22 min | 4 min 30 sec | 2 min |
| 2 hour HD movie | 4.5GB | 2 hours 10 min | 1 hour 5 min | 13 min | 6 min 30 sec |
The fastest broadband on my estate — or my money back?
We're very confident that's the case, yes — so that's the deal. We won't rest until we're satisfied that we've squeezed every last bit of performance from the phone line that services your home.
In fact, we'll stand by our word. Switch to our superfast broadband and get a faster connection guaranteed or your money back:
- We guarantee that you will get a faster line sync speed than your current supplier
- Simply take a screenshot of your existing line sync speed from your router configuration pages (save this as we will need it to process your claim)
- Order your new connection with us and let us tweak performance for 14 days
- If the new sync speed is not higher than your old one you can cancel your service with us at no cost and return to your old supplier
And, it's superfast all the time...
You may well have suffered the frustration of the daily evening s-l-o-w down with your existing broadband, when every man and his dog is trying to get online. Well, with our Superfast Broadband service, you'll be able to say cheerio to this particular annoyance. That's because our (very) big pipe has enough capacity to deal with all the demand that's thrown at it. This means that we don't need to resort to "traffic shaping" or throttling your connection, and you can enjoy consistently high speeds, whatever the time of day (or night).
How much does it cost?
You can choose between two superfast broadband packages. The prices you see below include line rental, VAT and your modem:
- 40Mbps unlimited: £39/month.
- 80Mbps unlimited: £42/month.
- Set up is £35.
- You'll get competitive call rates from us as part of the deal: see the full rate card here.
What about my phone service?
You will need to switch your phone service to us to get our superfast broadband — line rental is included in your monthly subscription. We're quietly confident that you'll find our call rates to be a welcome surprise...
Do we offer call packages?
We don't offer call packages for a good reason: they waste your money. After a few calculations, we realised that our low call rates (which track a wholesale base rate) mean our customers get the best deal by paying only for what they use. When was the last time you really got your money's worth from a fixed call package? Here are some figures to show our workings:
*So everything is absolutely transparent, we've based our figures here on call rates that were available from the bt.com and super-fast.co.uk websites on 25th September 2017.
How much do calls cost?
Take a look at our wholesale call rates here.
A little more on why we're doing this
We want superfast broadband. We (and we're guessing most of you reading this) like living in a lovely peaceful rural location too. Unfortunately, superfast broadband and rural locations go together as well as oatcakes and caviar — they're not considered to be in the same league. Take a look at BT's fibre network roll out schedule here and you'll see Cheddleton isn't even a twinkle in the eye of their plans yet. By taking matters into our own hands however, we can bring superfast broadband to rural locations luke St Edwards Park and Leekbrook.
What, you want the in-depth nitty gritty technical details of how all this works?
If you're anything like us, you might want to know exactly how the higher speeds are achieved. We won't go into "Sub Loop Unbundling" here, but if you're interested, you can fill your boots here.
Really? I've tried before and haven't been able to get superfast broadband here.
Really. We mean superfast broadband — it really is available on St Edwards Park and Leekbrook.
A free oatcake? / What is an oatcake?
If you've spent any time in Staffordshire, you'll likely already know all about oatcakes. But for those of you who are new to the area or have somehow managed to avoid any knowledge of this delicious local delicacy read on.
There is such thing as a free lunch! It is with great pleasure and pride that as part of your superfast order, you'll get a voucher that you can use in the famous Leek Oatcake shop so that you can enjoy one of the savoury treats on us. What will you have in yours? Cheese? Bacon? Egg? Tomato? Red or brown sauce? The choice is yours!
