Temporary Portable Phone Line

[Dave_NA]

Has anyone had any experience ordering a telephone line for the middle of a field.

 

I need to get a few lines with broadband into a festival site. Has anyone had any experience of this doing and could shed some light on the best action to take.

 

Cheers

[Ynot]

Has anyone had any experience ordering a telephone line for the middle of a field.

May sound like the obvious response, but you have spoken to the local phone companies (or even BT) haven't you?

[bruce]

I have done similar things - not for festival sites, but for site huts on construction sites. It wasn't a huge problem, but at the time I had a good working relationship with our BT account manager. And even though these were "greenfield" sites, they did have an address and postcode :D

 

I would suggest talking to BT well in advance. Give them postcodes. Give them maps and sketches. Have somebody there to meet them when they arrive. And allow plenty of lead time - assume they are going to get it wrong first time, and leave time to fix it.

 

Charging will be interesting. You need to take out a "temporary service", as defined in chapter 15 of the BT price book. You pay all the usual installation charges, which can be substantial if there is no existing infrastructure. It'll need to be a BT business service rather than domestic. Minimum contract is 1 month.

 

Talk to a BT business advisor, or account manager if you have one.

[broadcast_techie]

Has anyone had any experience ordering a telephone line for the middle of a field.

 

I need to get a few lines with broadband into a festival site. Has anyone had any experience of this doing and could shed some light on the best action to take.

 

Cheers

 

Are you the festival organiser? Have the festival organisers asked you to arrainge this? none of the above?

 

Major festival or local in the park youth gig?

 

To you initial question: yes I have some experience, but it is limited to having having added on to someone else's order... Major festivals will already have temporary telecoms arrainged, you need to find out who arrainges them. As said above, if you've been asked to organise them, then you need to contact BT asap, they are used to dealing with this.

 

Kris

[Dave_NA]

Yes we have been asked to organise a phone line on a new festival site. Nothing like this has ever been done there before, so no historical information.

 

I will be contacting BT tommorow morning, as only found out today, however was just after some basic information from anyone who has done it in the past, ie what lead time is expected, did they find BT quite useful and how did the contract system work etc.

 

Cheers

[bruce]

Lead time - they say "normally" a maximum of 8 days. That's assuming there is already local infrastructure. However, I have been involved in project (slightly larger scale :D ) where the lead time was about 18 months.

[Dave_NA]

And how about if there is no infrastructure, apart from approximately 800m-1km away which could be used, what other options have I got.

 

If BT simply say its not possible, what other options are available?? I know satelite comms are expensive, but is there anything else? I would have liked to have had it planned ages ago, but the customer has literally just handed this to us. They were supposed to be dealing with it themselves.

[Ike]

I've worked on a couple of gigs where BT have installed temporary poles and drop wires within a couple of weeks of the request going through although I couldn't say how much they charged.

 

How flexible are you willing to be over the broadband and number of lines situation? One problem you may have is that broadband requires its own dedicated pair unlike standard lines that can be paired up using a system called DACS, so for a number of broadband lines you will require a fair bit of free copper. Out in the sticks it's not uncommon to find a good number of lines shorted or open circuit, coupled with the increase in demand since broadband and more people working for home there's a fair bit of competition.

 

What do you mean by infrastructure? Have a look for the green boxes or primary connection points (PCPs) at road junctions as well as BT (and GPO round here!) man hole covers, phone boxes and overhead lines. Being able to inform them "it's just round the corner from the payphone 0161111222" or "it's next to the junction of xxx and yyy where there is a PCP with the number 45 on the side" will probably help.

 

In my experience BT will hardly ever say no, they may however want to charge you a small fortune.

[dbuckley]

Can you even get temporary broadband...?

[zonino]

you can get contracts from 1 month upwards, so I'd say yes

[djw1981]

Can you even get temporary broadband...?

If you are willing to pay for it.........

 

We obtained an ISDN line from BT to the middle of a field for an event which was sending an audio feed to a radio station. It was needed for 3 hours. They fitted a normal phone line and an ADSL data line as well as part of the deal. They gave a 4 days windown in which they would install it (Wed-Sat_ for a Saturday event, and typically installed it (thankfully with no problems) at 10am for a 2pm start.

[dbuckley]

I've just had a swizz at Section 15 part 11, and still don't think you can get temporary broadband. I know you can get many services temporarily, but broadband isn't really a proper business service and thus I suspect it wont be there. ISDN, no problem, I know you can get moderate speed data lines temporarily, but I remain sceptical you can get broadband.

[broadcast_techie]

IIRC BT charge per telephone pole they need to install, wouldn't like to speculate what that cost, I think we decided it wasn't worth it.

From past experience of using ISDNs in random places, they generally get installed and left, we pay for the minimum 12 month contract, that may have changed thought. Oh and we have had an ISDN installed in a tree!!

[bruce]

I've just had a swizz at Section 15 part 11, and still don't think you can get temporary broadband.

 

well, there are several ISPs (zen.co.uk being just one) that will provide broadband over a BT line on a minimum contract of 1 month. But I'd be surprised if BT business broadband couldn't do the same.

[Pete McCrea]

It can be done as the others have said. However expect to spend several hours on Hold to BT due to it not having turned up in time, or in the wrong place. You'd be best off getting it installed a week or two before hand to ensure that when it does go wrong you have time to sort it out.

 

I believe it is possible to get short term broadband- thinking of the likes of Greenbelt where they need it for a weekend in certain venues. Not sure who the provider is though.