Bath and North East Somerset Council is to eschew the BDUK part funded drive
towards a goal of 90% with superfast broadband and everyone else getting 2 Mbps
or better.The Keynsham
People carries the news that the council believes the current plan on offer
which would see the council spending £1 million of its own money on top of
perhaps £670,000 BDUK funding is too expensive.
One stumbling block mentioned was the requirement for a survey to find out
how many had computers, something that many councils seem to be doing without
much trouble. SurveyMonkey which some councils have used allows unlimited
questions and responses for £299 a year.
The council is not giving up on broadband but is investing £25,000 to look
at other ways to improve internet access across the area.
Bath has FTTC available from Kingsmead exchange in the city centre, and
south of the River Avon Virgin
Media provides coverage, people connected to Combe Down exchange are
restricted to ADSL2+ from O2 and TalkTalk. Saltford has Virgin Media cable
services as does Keynsham which also has ADSL2+ from TalkTalk. So while a large
number of residents have superfast available from Virgin Media, if your
property is not served by cable TV already then it is not likely to be coming
to you.
There are a number of people in the village here who work from home and they
need a reliable broadband connection.We are not out in the sticks, we are right next to Bath and we have people here
who are grateful when they manage to negotiate 0.1 Mbps to 0.5 Mbps.What we are left with now is a gulf between the people in rural areas and those
in urban areas.We have got great swathes of B&NES which are absolutely pitiful and my
concern is that this study is not going to be able to address that
situation.”David Batho, chair of Claverton Parish Council
The above quote sums up the situation that many people around the UK will be
used to experiencing, the danger for any council is that as other nearby areas
upgrade infrastructure, home owners and more importantly businesses will not
consider the area to move to, and even worse businesses may relocate to areas
with better infrastructure.
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What will £25k find out?
No idea, a hint in Mr Batho’s comments, that it may be a study of some sort. Probably setting out the risks that business taxes may drop with poor broadband, empty shops in small villages will remain empty as niche stores that trade online will not move into the area.
A lot of information is available free, e.g. our maps, not spots, and surveys are cheap to run as I pointed out.
It’s not newsworthy as it’s not BDUK, but two local District Councils near me have used grants (in the order of £30K I believe) to bring a fixed wireless solution to their rural lowspots. Seems to take about 6 months.
If £25k can get Fixed Wireless that ensures 2 Mbps to all the properties outside current superfast access then great, but the topography of the area suggests it may not be easily done in that area.
Topography is the big problem, but 12Mbps/6Mbps, or double that is, I think, a bit better than 2Mbps. But I may be in a minority amongst the posters here!
Which fixed wireless are we talking?
Kent was looking at £1m for fixed wireless at those and a little better speeds.
While B&NES is smaller I don’t think it is 1/40th the size of Kent.
£25k buys 25 days consultancy at £1000/day.
Cha-ching!
Which I’m sure will result in “You should have gone for the BDUK deal” 😉
sounds like they are in between a rock and a hard place. If they take the bduk funding they end up wasting most of it in admin and procurement and still have to spend their own money anyway just to give it to BT. I don’t blame them, but they will still get the flak whatever they do. I feel really sorry for all these councils. They don’t even need a survey, the simple fact is if you live near a cab or an exchange you will get something. If you don’t you have to jfdi yourself.
@cyberdoyle Give to BT, so Fujitsu’s plan is not worth considering in your view?
Combe Down not Coombe Down.
I can see over 18 wireless signals in my area alone, so multiple by x and they have their answer.
Kingsmead serves over 31,000 residential premises and almost 2,500 non residential.
Sounds good to me, more BDUK money to go round the rest of Somerset!
Fixed the Coombe Down type