Parts of Midhurst may miss out on Openreach fibre services
Monday 23 July 2012 09:59:14 by Andrew Ferguson

New broadband slow-spots may not actually be in the countryside or at the very edges of towns, but instead could be in parts of towns and villages where objections are raised about where to place a new cabinet and Openreach cannot reach a cost-effective solution.

Midhurst in West Sussex, looks set to get a FTTC roll-out from Openreach as part of the companies £2.5 billion investment, and while a number of cabinets raised no objections, one resident in Chichester Road, is objecting to a new cabinet, going to the length of using a cot mattress (similar dimensions to the cabinet) to illustrate their objection.

In other areas of the UK where cabinets have been objected to, the delays often can mean the cabinet slips down the roll-out list, or vanishes altogether. This may mean that up to 500 homes and businesses are left with the broadband they have now, and as the area was identified as suitable for commercial investment, it may well be excluded from BDUK funding.

Of course the ideal solution would be to roll-out full fibre (FTTP) to the homes in that area, using existing ducting and pavement chambers for the passive hardware. The issue here is the extra cost of installing the fibre, particularly in towns if extra pavement chambers have to created, or duct blockages cleared.