Superfast Berkshire 2

As the old thread has closed this is new thread for Superfast Berkshire

Old thread link

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/f/4062944-sup...

Project overview

£1.43 Mllion from BDUK, which is match funded by the 6 Unitary Berkshire Authorities to a total of £2.86 Million,this will then hopefully be match funded by the winning tender (Openreach or Fujitsu) to just under
£6 million for Berkshire.

The project should go into procurement between Nov 2012 to March 2013 and should be completed no later then July 2013 as set out by BDUK beacuse of the EU delays.

The contact will be awarded between May-August 2013 this may be delayed depending on how long the delay in procurement will be but work will then begin and continue to 31/05/2015.
As for which areas will be first, it will be left to the winning company to procede wilth the rollout, so likely the largest rural populations first from the towns and then outwards.

http://www.superfastberkshire.org.uk/index.aspx?arti...

What you can do now for the project if you live in Berkshire or know people that do is to register on the Superfast Berkshire website (Option on the top menu), all the results show up on the interactive map.
The purpose of registering shows the project team and any prospective companies the demand in the local areas and should influnce the rollout plan by the winning company.

http://www.superfastberkshire.org.uk/index.aspx?arti...

The map breaks down into parishes for each of the main local authorities in berkshire so you can see which postcodes have been registering.
Residential, Business and Organsisations all need to register to show the demand to the market, in particular Busines registrations are very important to the project.

By registering it proves to the market that areas it deemed unviable to invest (white areas), are actually viable which causes the market to invest its own funds while the public funding for that area is returned to the pot to be used to extend the reach further.

So a example would be that cabinets inside of a large village will be paid for by the market, while those outside which are more expensive will use the public and market funding.

As for existing urban areas in Berkshire large amounts already have access to FTTC and Cable services, with continued infill of FTTC across exchanges that have had FTTC deployment.
Exchange only lines are a issue in many exchanges both urban and rural, for those in rural these should be covered by the project. As for Urban their are market plans which will likely happen in 2014 towards the end of the commerical rollout where it is viable.

Edited by ccxo (Tue 21-Aug-12 16:58:49)

More cabinets are going live in Newbury that where missed out in the 5b rollout, 3 are currently being installed cab 7 by grove/oxford road at the roundabout and 2 FTTC cabs for the 2 cabs by Hawthorn/London road in front of the Fire Station.

In Thatcham 2 cabinets are being installed- 43 which serves the New estate build on the old army depo and cab 2 in Southern Cold Ash- this work will begin in early September- proably live by end of September.

Tadely should be going live by the end of September as the remaining work should be completed on the last few cabinets.

Superfast Berkshire registrations are at 2696, with West Berkshire leading with the most registrations, which in comparison to the rest of Berkshire has the vast majority of registrations about 95% so far.

Edited by ccxo (Thu 30-Aug-12 16:04:18)

September update.

September 2012 - Digital Champions Required

West Berkshire currently have 30 Champions and Wokingham 2, driving the signup campaign forward. There are still vacancies in 61 parishes across Berkshire.

Do you have the time and the energy to drive your parish or village into showing you demand Superfast Broadband? Flyers and posters, training and assistance are provided free and if interested please email David Allen - [email protected]


Which does reflect across the demand stimulation map where certain parishes in West Berkshire are into the 100's while others are less then 25 registrations.


The project is continuing to move forward into procurement hopefully before end of 2012 but this is still tba.

On the Openreach deployment further cabinets are having power installed in the East and North of Newbury.
Thatcham is seeing a number of cabinets being installed as part of phase 9b and their are also quite a few cabinets being installed for additional capacity in VM area's showing a strong take up of FTTC services.

Of a interesting note i spoke to the carillion telent engineers instaling a new cabinet who imformed me that they had 174/175 cabinets to instal by Christmas- they where next of to Tadley.
How large of a area they cover is unkown but it would have to be quite sustantial since the surrounding area many exchanges are either already enabled in and around Berkshire- so prehaps quite a few to be announced by Openreach or as part of the BUDK plan.

October update

The Superfast Berkshire project is looking to enter the pre-procurement 16 week phase very shortly and this should result in an award of contract at the end of February.

If the above goes to plan, then likely to see work starting a few months afterwards, prehaps May/June at the latest.
The eastern LA's in Berkshire are very close to having nearly 100% exchange coverage for FTTC, this does not mean that all cabinets are enabled, so their wll likely be alot of infill via the program for those exchanges already enabled to hit the projects target.
West Berkshire will remain the LA with the most exchanges to cover as it is the most rural-15 exchanges to cover and then the 5 that are enabled will likely have infill where the commercial rollout has not gone.


The main focus still is the digital champions in each area, as their are only 2 outside of West Berkshire but work is underway to get the other la to get the parish champions up in their areas.

Current registration numbers are at 4801.

Thanks for the updates. I see from the press that the European Commission is on the verge of approving the UK's BDUK funding scheme, so that looks like one more obstacle to progress about to be removed. The European Commission had been scrutinizing the scheme to see whether it was insufficiently competitive and thus should be treated as a government subsidy so it's good news that they have arrived at a satisfactory conclusion.

November Update

The Superfast Berkshire project should enter procurement on the 19th of November, the final meetings etc are taking place.
This will begin the 16 week procurement phase and the contact should be signed by February/March 2013, planning will then begin and work beginning in 2nd/3rd quater of 2013.

Edited by ccxo (Thu 08-Nov-12 17:58:11)

Update to November,

As expected the project has entered procurement on the 19/11/12 and will run till June 2013 when the contact will be signed with the successful bidder.

The two bidders left in the framework are Openreach and Fujitsu, its likely that Openreach will win the tender as the amount of funding is too small for Fujitsu.

Demand registation is just short of 6500, if you have registered please do ask neighbours and friends in Berkshire to do so as well if they live outside of the major towns.

December update.

Demand registration is now at 7400, with good numbers in the East and center of Berkshire, hopefully this will continue to over 10,000.

As for the project, the project manger has left the project and as such a new manger will start in January along with the procurement process.
This delay means the procurement will go from 14/01/2013 to 27/07/2013, this cannot be done sooner due to the restrictions of the BDUK framework and Berkshire slot in the system.

What does this mean, end date of procurement has moved back by about 6 weeks and will end in July, factor in another 3 months for planning will take us to November/December 2013 before any work will begin.

Though if their are further delays then it could be 2014 till work begins, so another year to wait.

Openreach commercial deployment

WINKFIELD ROW has gone live ahead of its 2013 date, leaving just BURGHFIELD COMMON/LITTLEWICK GREEN.

The unplanned exchanges stand at WRAYSBURY/COLNBROOK/WARGRAVE/ARBORFIELD CROSS,
in the east of Berkshire.
West Berkshire their are 14 unplanned exchanges, which with those above could possibly see in the last commerical phase.

Edited by ccxo (Fri 07-Dec-12 21:01:01)

January update

Things are finally moving again as the project re-started procurement on the 14th(Monday) of January and it will run till the 27/07/2013.
Adding on another few months for planning work may start late 2013 in Nov/December and carry on till March 2015, for the rollout to complete.

Demand registration has reached 8241, hopefully this will continue to rise and break 10,000 registrations.

Cabinet deployment is still continuing across Berkshire, work is yet to begin on Burghfield Common as it is currently on the June holding date.

January Update part 2 (cannot edit above post as its past the 12 hour limit)

Tadley has now gone live, for those connected to the Tadley exchange check the BT wholesale asdl checker with either your BT number or use the address checker if on SKY/TT full llu, to see if your cabinet is live and accepting orders.

Burghfield Common, has the first 4 cabinets planned for the end of the month- 2/3/5/7 this to site the cab and put in the fibre duct work- power should be a few weeks behind this.