Thank you Louise and well done; your story is inspirational.

Best wishes

David

One thing I am interested in you state that you "are connected to the BDUK initiative!.

In what way are you "connected"?

As far I was aware BDUK gave money to councils who tendered out services, and part of the tendering scheme had a minimum turnover requirement of £20million to make sure companies were financially robust enough to actually deliver the contract.

So have you made any tenders for BDUK money from any council?

Don't say that it is a company secret as who tenders for a project is publically known I am just wondering why you would mention BDUK.

Hi,

We have had meetings with the Technical Head of BDUK and our ideas were well received and contributed to some changes/additions in the advisory document they send out to the regions.

We remain in contact and whilst we are NOT recommended in any way by BDUK, we do have friendly access for advice and guidance should we need it which proves very helpful when looking at bids etc.

I was also invited last year to join the Government's "Channel Shift" initiative as one of their "Digital Leader's", which is looking at the "Digital by Default" agenda and how this can be achieved across the UK.

We are also in solid contact with DEFRA re Rural broadband with the same type of relationship in place, together with the Office for Civil Society and other government based organisations that are providing much guidance and, in some areas, practical support for the development of CommunityUK and our initiative.

You are quite right when you say, with regard to BDUK, that the main, top tier suppliers will be responsible for the "backbone" of supply to rural areas but often NOT for the "last mile" to the communities themselves. This is another issue and one that will be dealt with at regional/local level and looks at far more than a simple, commercial solution.

Again, we are involved in this type of activity/discussion in many locations across the UK at the moment.

All round, this is all early days stuff but I can confidently stay we are nicely ahead of the curve at the moment with the CommunityUK approach engendering a lot of genuine interest. In fact our project/initiative has received cabinet level support pretty much from day one. Simply put, we tick many boxes that should be ticked when working with communities. It is MUCH more than a simple commercial WiFi broadband service as others have commented on.

Contrary to what you may believe or read on here - we are an increasingly well thought of and supported organisation and that support is positioned where it counts I am pleased to say.

I hope that answers your questions.

Thank you very much for your support Louise.

You have become a great asset to CUK and a fantastic example for your community. You really are what we are all about.

I am very proud of you and to have helped you.

Well done

If i were in your shoes I would not be hoping for any bduk money.

The big boys will have this sown up. They will match bduk money pound for pound which you won't be able to and will have brands that people want to buy from such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk .

They will also be perfectly able to stick a few ariels up by themselves.

eSussex Broadband Plan confirms my thinking..

There are a number of small-scale wireless broadband providers in a few communities in some parts of East Sussex, and others are considering or planning deployments in the county. While these small-scale deployments are offering services in some small communities which would otherwise have poor or no broadband access, pending a better alternative, generally small-scale, independent, vertically-integrated providers probably do not provide the basis for a sustainable, long-term approach to better broadband provision in East Sussex, though some may continue to find a niche to operate in for a few more years and/or become part of a larger scale wholesale solution by partnering with one another and/or larger providers.

In short, the council ain't going to put bduk money into small wireless providers unless they are extremely switched on and have big boy partners interested. The big boys are not interested to any great noticable degree.

You are in a short term niche market. I'd be going after other players customers who are already in that market.

Edited by partial (Wed 16-May-12 21:24:54)

"born of clear fear of our competition"

Or born of ten years of disappointment with cowboys who arrive in a blaze of publicity and disappear in a year or two without ever offering a realistic service?

History is not on your side yet (and nor is technology if you're really using 2.4GHz). There's a lot of baggage to be overcome.

I was going to wish you good luck but then I looked at your LinkedIn profile. The detail of what you did before CommunityUK isn't listed, whereas most people with real history to tell are happy to tell it on LinkedIn. I also noticed how many of the logos on your profile were associated with recruitment agencies, and the less said about them the better.

Instead, I'll say good luck to your users.

Ooo what's this?

In reference to www.freebusinessforums.co.uk/legal-advice-help/15744-communityuk-le...:

I recently developed CommunityUK portal at a hourly fee, however after several months, the requests started becoming ridiculous and in several instances I was even asked to write the brief, FOR FREE!

Due to constant feature creeps I soon realised CommunityUK was a site I didn't want to be aligned with yet along working on.

Couple this with the inability to pay me on time every time I raised an invoice, I wanted to ensure I had as little to do with these guys as possible.

However as I am a business owner and believe in being fair I ensured any work I had started, I finished, this included several snag lists from the client.

When I had finished the site I raised the invoice this was 44 hours for ?375 you wont believe the audacity of CommunityUK, they responded with a email stating they would only pay me ?225 as I had decided to leave them, this was not my problem and only confirmed the deviant nature of Community UK Peter Reeed Forrester and Steve Gaskin. This is not how you should conduct yourself as businessmen!

After much debating I decided I would just be happy to cut ties, so agreed to accept the payment, which is now extremely overdue.

What would be the best way for me to commence legal action against this company? I have sent a recorded letter to Peter Reed Forrester asking for payment.

I've said it before and will say it again: this mutual "yah, boo, sucks" to each other among wireless providers does no credit to the business. Nor for that matter do I like BT-baiting.

Some people will find the community-engagement provision attractive (but it is not a monopoly) so I have no trouble supporting it in principle, but I doubt it is a universal panacea; and equally a commercial wireless provider may better meet a local need in another case, and I support them too. The challenge for both, it seems to me, is small communities which do not have the scale to attract commercial investment (and I'm thinking those of below 100-250 dwellings), and I see nothing of substance in this discussion that offers them much hope.

I'm never impressed by the "who you know" or "dissing the dirt" arguments in any line of business. Rather the pace of change, both technological and competitive, and rising customer expectations, present a big challenge for every business, and should never be glossed over. In the modern world choice is good, and we expect it.

Edited by smurf46 (Wed 16-May-12 23:09:41)

I read this thread over the last couple of days and wasn't going to bother but the more I thought about it.....

It is amazing that a load of so called professionals can behave like a pack of starving wolves attacking ths fella and his company with [censored] and personal accusations for what appears to be no good reason other than to knock a competitor or just have some sport!!

I have looked at the blokes answers and they all seem reasonable to me. Hes even let you in on his personal life to explain himself. How open is that?? In fact I rang an old workmate of mine at Havant Council last night and she told me that their wifi setup there is working great and that the this guy and his workmates are doing good things there for the people.

So what is your gripe you lot??? What's your problem?

I looked at the guy's linked in profile and it is more than good enough by me and his recommendations showed me he is very well thought of. What is that idiot knocking it on about?

The Batboy bloke needs to belt up too, if you read the thread fully the girl complaining about the invoice was obviously totally in the wrong.

In my mind you need to stop being a bunch of complete hand jobs, congratulate the fella on what he is trying to do and get on with your own work.

Seems to me that the best form of defence in here is attack by nasty [censored] and communityuk is the only decent one out the lot of you. I know where my money would go. Grow up!!

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I read this thread over the last couple of days and wasn't going to bother but the more I thought about it.....

It is amazing that a load of so called professionals can behave like a pack of starving wolves attacking ths fella and his company with [censored] and personal accusations for what appears to be no good reason other than to knock a competitor or just have some sport!!

I have looked at the blokes answers and they all seem reasonable to me. Hes even let you in on his personal life to explain himself. How open is that?? In fact I rang an old workmate of mine at Havant Council last night and she told me that their wifi setup there is working great and that the this guy and his workmates are doing good things there for the people.

So what is your gripe you lot??? What's your problem?

I looked at the guy's linked in profile and it is more than good enough by me and his recommendations showed me he is very well thought of. What is that idiot knocking it on about?

The Batboy bloke needs to belt up too, if you read the thread fully the girl complaining about the invoice was obviously totally in the wrong.

In my mind you need to stop being a bunch of complete hand jobs, congratulate the fella on what he is trying to do and get on with your own work.

Seems to me that the best form of defence in here is attack by nasty [censored] and communityuk is the only decent one out the lot of you. I know where my money would go. Grow up!!

It's funny the most aggressive and abusive post on this thread is yours in defence of the company.

The probem is that a random startup company with less than a 1000 customers comes on to a technical forum to try and get some free advertising.

This is a field that is littered with failed companies in recent years and terms like "new and exciting ways" without any substinace looks like just marketing speak without any real substance.

When genuine questions are raised such as "wheres" the money and "how does it work" gets either ignored an agressive response from said company, citing commercial secrecy or a half answer with flippant remarks such as "I won't show you my undies". This is meant to be from a CEO of a company, it more sounds like its comg from David Brent of the office.

We also get some bigging up of the comapny saying they are involved with BDUK and DEFRA and when challenged it seems to mean that they have phoned them up a couple of times which is not the same.

There has been some concerns raised of which you dismiss yet the only poeple that can say who was in the wrong between a company and a supplier is the small claims court and hopefully she will pursue her case as it seems that a lot of companies are quick to invoice and slow to pay up if at all and it is a common practice to hold as much money as you can especially if you are planning to fold in the near future.

Given that 90% of new companies will fold in the first two years you would honestly invest in this company with NO track record with NO clear financial model with NO more information than a website, a linkedin profile and some forum posts. You would do better going down and sticking on the first horse in the bookies, or if you want I have some magic beans you can have.