Hilton Case Study

Hilton is an area of Dorset that is quite some distance from the cabinet that serves it, which meant they were experiencing extremely slow speeds and unreliable broadband connection. Wessex Internet have recently installed our equipment on All Saints’ Church tower, in the centre of the village, to offer a solution to this.

All Saints’ Church Hilton is a fifteenth century Grade 1 listed church within a conservation area. The church is in the centre of a fairly tightly packed village which nestles in the bottom of a deep valley. The Problem Hilton is served by the Milton Abbas telephone exchange, but the cable route to the local cabinet is of excessive length and the cabinet itself is located about a mile from the village centre. The problem was how to achieve high speed broadband distribution to a fairly small community. Typical broadband speeds were between 1-1.5 Mb/s and dropped dramatically when loading was high, such as when the school children returned and started their homework. It was impossible for more than one computer at a time to be on the internet in each property. With such slow speeds, some broadband users were unable to sustain a fast enough connection to complete transactions before websites timed out.

Our Solution

Wessex Internet’s engineers climbed up the narrow, winding staircase of All Saints’ Church tower and installed our broadcasting equipment. Approximately 90% of the domestic properties in the village can be seen from the top of the tower, which also has a good view of Bulbarrow Hill. We now estimate All Saints’ to be the church with the fastest speeds in Dorset, if not UK! Currently measuring speeds of 83Mb/s!

The Result

We are now able to serve an area of Dorset where residents were previously only receiving speeds of up to 2Mb/s. Now we can provide them with our 50Mb/s package.

Hilton is an area that is quite some distance from the cabinet that serves it. Therefore it is likely that even if or when BT upgrade it, residents of Hilton will not get the full experience or speeds advertised. Wessex Internet are offering a solution to this so that residents now have the choice to use a local company delivering superfast broadband proven across the Blackmore Vale.

Vicar of All Saints Church, and our first Hilton customer, Helier Exon said, “I am absolutely delighted with the service I am receiving from Wessex Internet. The broadband speed is stable and members of the family can all be on the web at the same time without encountering the dreaded rotating circle or hourglass.”