Broadband Update - November 2019

Whiteparish exchange– A36, Salisbury end of village. FTTC available to some– contact your supplier to upgrade to a fibre service if you are within about 1.2 km of this cabinet.

Wellow 15 (5) – Outside The Hatchett. FTTC – some residents along A27 who were on Wellow 5 are now connected to the new FTTC Wellow 15 cabinet. Contact your supplier to upgrade to a fibre service if you are within about 1.2 km of this cabinet and think you may be connected to it.

Wellow 5 – Mill Lane – ‘behind’ Wellow 15 at Hatchett corner

I suggest you talk to your neighbours and look at using the rural Gigabit voucher scheme and request an FTTP scheme quote. Previously we have had reasonable quotes for your area and now vouchers rebates are higher – so try again.

West Wellow 3 - A27 south of The Hatchet, Church/Pound Lane.

I suggest you talk to your neighbours and look at using the rural Gigabit voucher scheme and request an FTTP scheme quote. Previously we have had reasonable quotes for your area and now government voucher contributions are higher so may cover the whole cost - it might be worth trying again.

Lockerley 4 –Doctor’s Hill, Newtown Road, The Banks, North Common, Gambledown, Carters Clay

Upper Doctor’s Hill – scheme co-ordinator Eric. The first community FTTP scheme now signed and waiting to be built. You will have already been directly contacted if you are part of this scheme.

Lower Doctor’s Hill (and Newtown road neighbours) – scheme co-ordinator John. Just waiting for final quote for small scheme of about 10 houses. Currently about £1800 per property which is just a little bit more than the rural gigabit vouchers will cover, hoping presence of neighbouring scheme might bring final costings down.

Newtown road (A27 end) - scheme co-ordinator Sarah. Initial quote received and again (about £1700 property) which is just a little bit more than the rural gigabit vouchers will cover- hoping presence of neighbouring scheme might bring final costings down.

Romsey exchange – Dunwood Manor. Talk to your neighbours! Group together in smallish clusters and look at rural Gigabit voucher scheme.

Check your cabinet connection and available options using http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome

Register your interest in a community fibre partnership on Openreach website https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/community-fibre-partnerships/

Do email me if you have any questions about local schemes or would like to start your own! Previous updates can be found on village website.

Broadband Update - September 2019

Very slowly the connectivity of the village is increasing but, like most of our internet, rather at a snail’s pace and sometimes it’s all rather frustrating….

There is some good news and hope for those of you still struggling on single figures (or less!). A few months ago the ‘Rural Gigabit Voucher Scheme’ was announced which awards larger grants for FTTP (fibre to the premise) infrastructure in rural areas such as ours. For a group of two or more properties the government may pay up to £1500 per residence or£3,500 per business (any kind of business so small sole trader counts, but not working at home for another employer unless you are self-employed). At about the same time upper Doctor’s Hill was given a quote from Openreach of around £1,200 per property for a FTTP solution (the best!). Suddenly the increased vouchers and the lower per property cost meant that a community partnership became achievable as only 50% of the properties needed to sign up and complete paperwork for the vouchers in order for the whole scheme to go ahead for the 22 properties on the list. I am delighted to report that contracts have now been signed with Openreach and that this scheme should be delivered within in the next 12-18months. You will have already been notified by myself if your property lies within this scheme.

We are really hoping the Upper Doctor’s Hill project will be the start of the rest of us achieving a reliable and speedy broadband connection and will provide the blueprint for others to easily follow in their footsteps.

There seems to be particular advantage in looking at larger schemes and therefore my current advice would be to gather a small set of your neighbours together, for example between 2 and 10, and register yourself for a FTTP community partnership. When/if you get a quote then do contact me and I’ll guide you through the next stage of the process.

Exchange Summary

Whiteparish exchange– FTTC available to some– contact your supplier to upgrade to a fibre service if you are within about 1.2 km of this cabinet. Salisbury end of village.

Wellow 15 (5) – FTTC – some residents at end of Mill Lane and along A27 who were on Wellow 5 are now connected to the new FTTC Wellow 15 cabinet - contact your supplier to upgrade to a fibre service if you are within about 1.2 km of this cabinet

Wellow 5 – Mill Lane – ‘behind’ Wellow 15 at Hatchett corner – I suggest you talk to your neighbours and look at using the rural Gigabit voucher scheme and request an FTTP scheme quote. Previously we have had reasonable quotes for your area so now vouchers are higher – try again.

West Wellow 3 - pockets around the village - I suggest you talk to your neighbours and look at using the rural Gigabit voucher scheme and request an FTTP scheme quote. Previously we have had reasonable quotes for your area so now vouchers are higher – try again.

Lockerley 4 – currently quotes obtained for lower Doctor’s Hill and Gambledown area but too expensive, ongoing negotiations with Openreach. Newtown road residents may like to group together and look at rural Gigabit voucher scheme.

Romsey exchange – as above – talk to your neighbours! Group together in smallish clusters and look at rural Gigabit voucher scheme

Check your cabinet connection and available options using http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome

Register your interest in a community fibre partnership on Openreach website https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/community-fibre-partnerships/

So….as usual none of it makes much sense other than as a way for the government to state that communities are enabled to get better broadband but strictly ration its availability to the most determined only…and in the process add layers of administration and therefore unnecessary costs. Technology is changing everyday and better connectivity at a lower cost is coming to our rural areas, but slowly. The only upside is that many of us may now get FTTP and then suddenly we will have some of the best services in the country and be in the top 10% rather than the bottom 10%  In the meantime I am hoping that the sun stays out long enough to allow me to submit this report as when its damp connection speeds plummet.

Ursula

broadband@sherfieldenglish.org.uk

Broadband Update February 2019

West Wellow 3 (WW3)

Last autumn, Mark was offered a FTTP (fibre to the property – best possible solution) Community Fibre Partnership package by Openreach for his local West Wellow 3 area. This included about 50 properties – A27 from Mill Lane towards Romsey, Pound/Church Lane & The Frenches (plus the odd anomalous property….). The cost of this was estimated by Openreach to be about £88,000 BUT it was made more attractive by some new government grants avaible to businesses and nearby residential properties. In my view (if you accept the premise that we might have to pay for faster broadband to arrive in the foreseeable future…) it was a good offer, but only achievable with a really good uptake from the included properties.

Mark and I spent a couple of months last year contacting and getting the views of all those properties included in the offer, many of which receive the worst broadband speeds in our village area. Emails, individual letters and much door knocking, resulted in about 20 residential properties and 10 businesses showing an initial interest. However this is not enough to make the project financially viable given the strict terms of the voucher scheme and the on-going complications of trying to work with Openreach and their shifting goalposts. We did not choose the properties on this quote, but were ‘given’ them by Openreach and a little googling and research indicates to me that very few, if any, projects of this size have actually been completed….. The Openreach algorithms that calculate these costings do not seem to understand rural areas and despite our attempts to liaise with Openreach it has not been possible to work out how we can tweak the scheme to make it more affordable for the majority of properties.

Lockerley 4

Excited by the seemingly ‘good’ value of the WW3 project I tried again to ask for a FTTP for a section of the Lockerley 4 area (Doctors’ Hill/Newtown road) that had a relatively high density of housing and low broadband speed. However results were very disappointing and I got sent back at quote for £400,000 which was completely unviable, and failed to make use our local knowledge and the detailed information I had sent to them.

Conclusion

Some of the village now has superfast broadband (Whiteparish cabinet) and some will hopefully get a fast FTTC solution (West Wellow 5/Mill Lane properties, new FTTC cabinet outside The Hatchett) in the near future.

In theory, FTTP schemes should not be limited by the current telephone exchange of a property and we should be able to use our local knowledge to choose compact geographical areas that would have a good uptake and lower installation costs to tempt Openreach…..but the changing staff, shifting goalposts and computer algorithms are set to thwart us and I am afraid even my optimism/determination to challenge is increasingly tinged with the realisation that most of the offers are just a publicity exercise. However, I am now told that we can include properties across exchanges for FTTP and so I plan to submit a Lockerley 4 (small area of Doctor’s Hill/ Newtown Road) request for a quote for a much smaller number of properties that I know will have good uptake and are relatively densely packed, just to see if this approach might be slightly more achievable than village-wide projects.

We have looked at using radio transmitters with Gigabeam, who were lovely and innovative but our gently rolling landscape with lots of trees is not ideal. I understand from another technically minded local resident that smaller local 5G networks might give us a solution into the future and of course there are those ‘fibre enabled’ telegraph poles and planning notices that keep appearing round the area…..

Do keep nagging our local representatives in local and national government and get in touch if you have any questions or are inspired with an idea to move us forwards.