February Update

Superfast Berkshire Website has been updated, on the Home page the Berkshire local broadband plan and timescale/progress pdf which outlines the procurement process till its close in July 2013

The Broadband intervention area has been defined (MAP) and will be released to the public at the end of February when the formal public consultation begins.

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

Demand registration is over 8500+, though progress has slowed in various parishes.

PCP 7 and 11 have had their power works finish, cabs 20/43/45 are currently having power installed between the 12-20th February.
PCP 10 in Thatcham is waiting for power currently planned for the 20-26 February.

Burghfield Common cabinets 2/3/5/7 have been installed- waiting for fibre/power works.
Littlewick Green cabinets 4/6/8/10 are having power installed at current- these serve the housing around cox green school.

The last and final commercial deployment phase (11) has been released by Openreach, their are no further exchanges for Berkshire, though Openreach have said about further exchange announcement and cabinet infill at older exchanges- (this already happens).

All remaining exchanges should be upgraded via the Superfast Berkshire project, its currently in procurement so things will be slow, the timescale pdf shows whats ahead till July 2013 when procurement ends and a supplier is awarded the contract, it will then be 1-3 months of planning and work will continue till March 2015 when the project ends.

Edited by deleted (Thu 14-Feb-13 02:39:56)

March Update

Superfast Berkshire registration continue to rise current total is 9241, the highest registration parishes still are in West Berkshire though their has been a increase in other parts of Berkshire which is great to see.

The Superfast Berkshire project is currently in Week 10/14 of pre-procurment and is on course to complete the procurement process by end of July 2013.

Burghfield Common cabinets 2/7 are having power installed this week.
LittleWick Green cabinet 7 is currently being installed.
Wokingham exchange- cabinets for Binfield should be ready by early April.

April Update

This one is quite late in the month but their has been little to report until now.

The Superfast Berkshire project has completed pre-procuement and is now in the procurment phase which is the final 14 weeks, progress can be seen on the 28 week pdf avalaible on the site.

Section from the April news letter-

'Over the last two months, we have conducted various detailed contractual discussions with the approved suppliers resulting in the issue of our formal Invitation to Tender (ITT) to Fujitsu and BT Openreach on 22nd April. The project remains firmly on track and we await the receipt of their bids at the end of June 2013'

Registration has broken the 10,000 mark which is a great achievement, we currently stand at 10,130 registrations though more are needed.

Work is continuing across Bracknell and Wokingham exchanges, along with cab 7 on the Littlewick green exchange.

Burghfield Common work looks to have completed on the cabinets, could be a delay in the main fibre spine but the exchange should go live before the estimated September date but for all lines do check the BT wholesale checker with either a BT number or address if on sky/tt numbers to see if you can order a FTTC service.

Wokingham exchanges

?? They are all done, and have been for a while, AFAIK.

Given that Fujitsu announced they were withdrawing from the process............it will be an interesting process of "negotiation" seeing that there is only one bidder!

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2013/03/fujitsu...

I'll bet the council willl be interested in the bids - all one of them: take it or leave it

Edited by deleted (Sat 27-Apr-13 20:58:57)

It was a general update since the last one as their has been work on some of the wokingham cabs, still power work due on cabinet 34 in early may as shown on roadworks.

Yes i know this and queried it with the team and was given the response that Fitisu are still part of the competition according to BDUK.

Its quite odd as their was always going to be one winner and with the new of Fujitsu's withdrawal from the BDUK process guaranteed this, maybe their still part of the process but will not repsond to any of the remaining ITT's.

June Update

(Missed the May update as their was little to report, so up to June now.)

The project is contunuing through the procurement phase and we are in week 22 out of 28, the tender responses will not come back till the end of June.

Estimated that Openreach will invest about 1.4 million into the project to go with the existing 2.8 million public funding, the procurement will finish at the end of July where the project team will know what coverage they can reach wilth the final funding.

On the demand registration side, their was a recent clean up of duplicate registrations to reduce the total below 10,000, currently 9781 so please do register if you have not already.

Once procurement finishes in July, survey work by Openreach will then take about 1-3 months though it could be shorter, we wont know until we reach this point as this is where the rollout will be planned up to March 2015.

Locally, work continues across Berkshire with additonal cabinets being added in Newbury and Thatcham, work is also continuing at Burghfield Common and Littlewick Green over the next few weeks, we may see these exchanges go live by the end of June.

June Update

(Missed the May update as their was little to report, so up to June now.)

The project is contunuing through the procurement phase and we are in week 22 out of 28, the tender responses will not come back till the end of June.

Estimated that Openreach will invest about 1.4 million into the project to go with the existing 2.8 million public funding, the procurement will finish at the end of July where the project team will know what coverage they can reach wilth the final funding.

On the demand registration side, their was a recent clean up of duplicate registrations to reduce the total below 10,000, currently 9781 so please do register if you have not already.

Once procurement finishes in July, survey work by Openreach will then take about 1-3 months though it could be shorter, we wont know until we reach this point as this is where the rollout will be planned up to May 2015.

Locally, work continues across Berkshire with additonal cabinets being added in Newbury and Thatcham, work is also continuing at Burghfield Common and Littlewick Green over the next few weeks, we may see these exchanges go live by the end of June.

Hermitage exchange in west berkshire now has sky/easynet llu so you can take the full advatange of the sky broadband products if you choose.

Edited by deleted (Wed 12-Jun-13 22:07:19)

2nd June Update

Their will be a delay in the second part of the procurement process as the project has increased its funding from both BDUK and the 6 councils/ plus the LEP.

So total public funding has increased to over £4 million,( see details below) what this means is that the invitation to tender has to be restarted and a supplies Openreach will not be chosen till the end of September instead of July.

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

While more funding is good, it does ask the question why know when we where only a few weeks away from completing procurement for the 14 weeks to start again.