Help I don't know what to do about exchange troubles

[Develio13]

Hi, i'm a very intensive gamer and i'm not in the best mood with BT and our exchange. Our broadband line keeps dropping regulary; i've not been able to use my PS3 online for 3 weeks.

I live in the middle of two exchange's; Melksham and Keevil...

My problem is that we're connected to the keevil exchange which can only provide us with 3 - 4 mb's down our line, and it keeps dropping about 2 - 3 times a day for x amount of time; never the same but less than an hour. We've contacted BT and they say nothings wrong with our line;

I was looking at Virgin Media fibre-optic but i was dissapointed because the keevil exchange is so out-dated; and now i was hoping we could maybe be connected to the melksham exchange which is far more modern and could provide us fibre-optic because we live litterally down the road from a row of houses which can get fibre-optic from virgin...

I'm going to cut this short, i need somebody to answer these questions:

1. Can we change our exchange being that we're in the middle of the two?
2. Will we have to have a new telephone number?
3. If we change exchange's then will virgin know we're in a fibre-optic area?
4. Would it be costly for us to change our exchange?
5. How would i go about changing our exchange, phone calls, letters and so on?

It's really irritating that all my friends have fibre-optic and i don't... They don't even invite me into thier games on PSN because i'll only lose connection like every 5 minutes from the game and they can't be bother to keep sending invites... So please can somebody help me; i'm beggin you... lol

Thank you for anybody who helps me with my problem...

Oh, here's the info about the melksham exchange: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SSMEL

And some info about our current exchange: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SSKEE

He is a map of our location:
http://86.133.246.190/exchanges.jpg

[heisenberg912]

As far as I know BT exchanges are totally irrelevant to cable. What you need to do is go on the virgin media website and use their broadband checker to see if it is available in your area. If it is then you should be able to have anything up to 20 mbit, and maybe 50 mbit if that is in your area too.

[Develio13]

Originally Posted by heisenberg912

As far as I know BT exchanges are totally irrelevant to cable. What you need to do is go on the virgin media website and use their broadband checker to see if it is available in your area. If it is then you should be able to have anything up to 20 mbit, and maybe 50 mbit if that is in your area too.

Thank you for your help, heisenberg912...

But i've already used the Virgin Media cable check, on two postcodes. It says it's not available in my area, but then i tried my mates postcode on semington road in melksham; which isn't that far from where i live. He's connected to the melksham exchange and it's available in his area, where as i'm connected to keevil and fibre-optic broadband is not available...

I know already that cable is part of the exchange because i provided link's with exchange info...

But thank you, anyway...

Develio13...

[Jon T]

Originally Posted by Develio13

I know already that cable is part of the exchange because i provided link's with exchange info...


Develio13...

You've mis-understood the information that the samknows page gave you.

The virgin cable network is independant of the BT network, and at no point connects with/at their exchanges. Virgin have their own exchange sites for telephony, and headends/UBS sites for cable(not sure if these are co-located).

To answer you question about one area close by getting cable and you not being able to, when cable networks was being laid in the early to mid 90's it wasn't uncommon for a whole estate to be cabled apart from a few streets that were not done due to the cable company/franchise running out of money.

[heisenberg912]

Do you know if other people on your street have cable? It's all about whether there is cable on your street or not. You should be able to tell because there will be a green cabinet at the end of your street that houses various goodies that control all the connections for phones, tv, internet etc.

Sadly if the cable stops at the road before yours then there is nothing you can do. Unless virgin decide to dig up your street to put cable in just for you (not gona happen!).

You could always ring them up and ask, but as I'm sure you are aware the VM coverage is far from universal.

[Develio13]

Originally Posted by Jon T

You've mis-understood the information that the samknows page gave you.

The virgin cable network is independant of the BT network, and at no point connects with/at their exchanges. Virgin have their own exchange sites for telephony, and headends/UBS sites for cable(not sure if these are co-located).

To answer you question about one area close by getting cable and you not being able to, when cable networks was being laid in the early to mid 90's it wasn't uncommon for a whole estate to be cabled apart from a few streets that were not done due to the cable company/franchise running out of money.

Thank you, Jon T and heisenberg912 for your help.

I would like to appoligize to heisenberg912 for thinking he was wrong about BT exchanges having nothing to do about Virgin Media Fibre-Optic broadband...

The street is on the other side of a roundabout to us, and don't think virgin will do anything about it, but i might try calling them and hope for the best

otherwise I guess i'll just have to find something else to do until we get fibre-optic in our area...

Thank you,

Develio13

[musicbravo]

you could be lucky, they might send spotter out to see if you are viable or not. Virgin are meant to be in filling cable areas to add 500000 new properties so it may not be out of the question for them to extend the network to cover your street if like you say the area is already cabled to the otherside of the roundabout