Tutorial on poss alternative solutions if FTTC isn't likely

Hi, We just started a S Fast Broadband group in our village prompted initially by the possibility of a DEFRA grant. The thing is we don't know which end is up or down. I did a search for stuff in the forums e.g. "ADSL2+ Explained" and got nothing.

The thing is a lot of folks here aren't 'currently' looking for 20+mbps BB BUT everybody knows we are being screwed for the little we do get (Market 1). So I would like to explore interim alternatives such as wireless (from the church tower) or ADSL2+ came to mind. If it turns out our village is going to be in a hard to reach area and we believe it will be is there any pointers/links the forum could give us for a Plan B implementation please? (ps looking for better than sattellite though)

Jamie

Where is your village and have you contacted your counties bduk program, as their are plans for white area's (areas where the market will not invest on its own) to be upgraded between 2013-2015 by the goverment and county funding that is matched by the market.

Our village is in S. Somerset, and yes we have had meetings with our county representative and yes now that the national negotiations have I believe been concluded with respect to approved providers, Devon and Somerset will be entering into negotiations with approved providers for SF Broadband hoping the provider will match their pot. My point is they are working top-down and we are working bottom-up and somewhere we are expected to meet in the middle. Now where the 'middle' will be is anyone's guess at the moment so I would like to explore Plan B's

Well looking at the Devon and Somerset superfast broadband site, the project will likely deliver the upgrade in the next 3 years up to 2015.

The tendering process should not be too long as very few companies have remained in the bidding, mainly just Openreach and Fujitsu, who have dropped out of alot of tenders at current mainly due to the sums not adding up.
Its expected that BT OR will win the majority, so FTTC will be the main upgrade across the counties where they win the tenders.

If you dont want to wait, wireless is your most likely soultion and their is a local company, though i would wait and see what the plans will be once the tender has been awarded.

http://www.wdi.co.uk/

Have you spoken to them about bringing their wireless service to the area or are you too far out. The budget you have via the proposed defra funds and what the community can raise will be the decider to what you can achieve.

What is the village name?

Edited by ccxo (Thu 26-Apr-12 00:13:14)

Thanks for the info....since posting I see thinkbroaband has published news of a project in Hampshire using the private network schools use. We approached Somerset Council a little while ago and our request to piggy-back on this fibre network was denied. I believe it was something to do with the contract Connecting Somerset signed. Shame as I'm 75 feet away from the cabinet (speaking purely selfishly of course LOL), besides that installing a 'replica' fibre cable smacks of mobile cells proliferating umpteen masts

Just last week we decided DEFRA's funding was a no go the reasons were:-

1) It has to be all inclusive and the LSOA map is used. That means if it is fibre fording a river an going 3 kms (adding wireless for 2-3 individually seems prohibitive
2) It all has to be installed & paid for (infrastructure part) before you can get up to 50% of the cost back from the fund but the real killer is next
3) We would be entering into a proposal when we didn't know how far our out of reach area would end up being because the negotiations are only beginning on the county rollout and the current DEFRA round submission is due end of May

Yes we are starting to talk to another wireless provider however we still have to know the answer to 3) above before that goes too much further

The exchange is Chiselborough.

Jamie

Edited by jayteepics (Thu 26-Apr-12 10:17:14)

I forgot to mention an alternate dimension which arose out of our recently completed village survey was some feedback from people who would prefer a mobile solution i.e. enable them to get rid of their landline - I suspect that one might get kcked into touch though, however any input on the viability of this would be welcome as we know jack about any of this. I suspect the idea arose because we discussed a 300+ mbps wireless mast on the church (by the way the churchgoers are unaware of this so forget the name of the village eh

Jamie

You can edit the post with the exchange and village for 12 hours after posting it. So a bit after noon. You could always PM it to anyone who needs to know .

Thanks for that. Slightly anonymised now.

Maybe if I asked my questions more specifically I might get some pointers...

In 'hard to reach areas' is the provision of ADSL2+ more likely than fibre? Is it much cheaper than fibre to install? If BT isn't going to get fibre here, is ADSL2+ an interim solution for us which BT might consider?

Thanks

Depends what you mean by "hard to reach areas".
Do you mean areas which currently have no ADSL (i.e. still on dial-up) or do you just mean small communities in the middle of nowhere (but ones which currently have ADSL1)?