Berkshire appears to be a county of two halves if the registrations on the Superfast Berkshire website are to be believed in terms of coverage and speed.
A local paper and website for Bracknell is attempting to encourage residents and businesses to register throughout the Bracknell Forest Council area, but as the overlay of the council area onto a map of estimated broadband speeds shows, the vast majority of postcodes have access to reasonable speeds already. What this map does not show is that Bracknell has almost blanket coverage from Virgin Media cable services, and looking at registered speedtests many people are using Virgin Media, what is missing is FTTC from Openreach, though it is expected later this year.
Of course, averages are of no comfort to the residents of areas like Binfield, Warfield, Winkfield and Cranbourne, but as with many other areas of the UK, these less populated areas run the distinct risk of still missing out on superfast as the 90% target means that many rural areas (but not all) will only receive the 2 Mbps minimum from the USC rather than the 30 Mbps and faster of others just two or three miles down the road.
Given the limited amount of funding available, councils are faced with the choice of spending perhaps £100 per property and improving broadband for hundreds of thousands, or spending £1000+ per property and only improving service for a few thousand.
staff member)
9 months ago
staff member)
9 months ago
staff member)
9 months ago
If councils are making it their job to provide faster broadband, it should be for all residents. Councils (and BTw) should focus on provision of ADSL2+ as a minimum to all areas and let private funding provide FTTx for the time being.
If the slowest speeds are raised, the averages rise too.