Due to multi-million pound investment, Northern Ireland has the best broadband in Europe. Apparently.
We just moved from Belfast (BT5) where I was getting around 3-4 Mbps of bandwidth (and no ability to get BT Infinity) to Bangor (BT20) where I’m now getting about 1.8 Mbps of bandwidth (and no ability to get BT Infinity).
Service has definitely gotten worse rather than better due to the last time we lived here (about 18 months ago), the line was capable of 6 Mbps. So we’ve gone from 6 Mbps to 1.8 Mbps.
BT still think we’re capable of getting 6 Mbps.
The point about BT Infinity is a little bizarre because people up the road can get it. And BT’s own Infinity Checker says the Bangor Exchange is enabled. Infinity, of course, is not accurate and tends to permit 10 Mbps upstream and 40 Mbps downstream. That’s obviously quite a bit off “infinity”.
So how can my exchange be enabled and I’m still unable to get BT Infinity? Because the exchange being enabled is only part of the equation. The problem is that the number of exchanges enabled is seen as the key performance indicator – not actual coverage, download speed or upload speed. In other words – none of the indicators that actually matter.
The problem I see here is smoke and mirrors. Unless we start to be honest about the level of broadband provision in Northern Ireland, nothing will improve.