Superfast North Yorkshire - Progress Report

@MrSaffron posted a new story on North Yorkshire, due to some PR happening...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7155-north-yorksh...

Whenever this happens, it seems to mean that a council meeting has considered a new report from SFNY, and today seems to be no different.

The report can be found on the council website. In time, the minutes will appear too, so you can see what was said:
http://democracy.northyorks.gov.uk/committees.aspx?c...

Highlights...
- Phase 1 complete. Payments based on budget; true-up reconciliation due in next 6 months, but no figures of expected return specified. I dont expect much, if any.
- Phase 2 ongoing
- Phase 3 proposal: To extend the contract with BT, and add additional infill coverage plus coverage spending clawback money, to reach 95%. I think the "infill" coverage is for USC purposes.
- No mention of technology involved, no mention of FTTRN.
- No timescale for phase 3, but not likely to complete before 2018/19.
- Takeup expected to reach 30% by end of 2015
- Takeup in phase 2 even higher than phase 1.
- Clawback quote: "BT are proposing early payment of Phase 1 Overage, with an assumption of 30% take up. This equates to £7.8m of additional funding that can be recycled immediately, with the proviso that this is used to deliver additional infrastructure with BT."
- Coverage of 25Mbps+ speeds ends up as: Phase 1 = 84%, Phase 2 = 88%, Phase 3 = 95%
- Contract with BT, for USC, allows for 2% to be left to satellite. Previous reports had this at 1%.
- Interim satellite solution - being planned and trialled by BDUK for national rollout in December.
- Recommends NY takes part in the interim satellite solution.
- Risk - needs £1m funding from EU in 2016.
- Risk - needs EU to extend state aid approval (NY-specific).

The funding seems different from the front page story, in both total and breakdown. Not sure why.

One further highlight to add. Hidden away in the "actions" section, totally unremarked is this:
- "The Airwave trial is underway in West Witton and Egton, although has experienced significant delays. Service is due to go live in autumn 2015."

As the Parsh Councillor in West Witton in Wensleydale responsible for getting the Airwave trial here, and as the very first connected customer, i can tell it like it is.

Airwave wanted 4 masts but only 2 were installed as these proved adequate. This is true point to point microwave with the majority of properties in sight of the 14.6m pole in the Fox and Hounds car park. However, because we are on the side of Penhill, some cannot see that and I was staggered to find that the furthest farms away from the masts could use standard aerials and reach the mast around a mile away several hundred feet above the village. From there a microwave link takes traffic direct from properties or repeated from the pub mast to Darlington to join the Virgin network. In the event either mast is hidden, repeaters can be deployed but none has yet.
Speeds - 10, 20 or 30 Mb/s are avaialable. I chose 10 but could upgrade any time and as an Ofcom monitored installation can attest to an average of about 10.3 down and 4.3 up . We had one problem in the early stages with the Darlington link but that was repaired and another standby link added. Given the pricing, 10Mb/s is £19.99 a month for residential and the installation fee it makes financial sense to ditch BT entirely as VoIP is £6 per month (BT charges £194.42 a year rental in advance,). I have the phone working but have to await the transfer of my "BT" number for a coupe of weeks.

We'll have 28 properties connected shortly around 30% of broadband users. Many more would like to ditch slow unreliable Open Wretch copper but are stuck in long contracts. The fact your next door neighbour has over 15 times the speed of your ISP is not grounds for prematurely cancelling the contract.


This is a postcode lottery. the village with our fibred cabinet can get the speeds we get far cheaper than us. Our distance from this cabinet means that BT's strategy of sweating the copper still lacks the technology to overcome the problems of long cable lengths. VDSL2+ is still a lab product. As we are in line of sight with our BT exchange they could have used microwave theselves but couldn't be mythered.

LN Comms t/a ilovebroadband have been great and their team, Yorkshire based, take a personal interest. We have had a n opening ceremony by our MP, Rishi Sunak, with BDUK project manager in attendance. As it happened the pubs wifi went down but the General Manager of LN diagnosed the proble and quickly replaced the router - catch a BT manager getting their hands dirty.

Next step is to cross the Dale and provide service to communities on the other side also by passed by fibre and it is hoped that by Christmas Castle Bolton and Preston under Scar will join and then the signal bounced back this side to pick up the hamlet of Swinithwaite

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Nov-15 08:51:42)

Hi John,

Really good news to see it running now.

A few more details can be found in this report too:
http://www.pipspatch.com/2015/11/07/bringing-broadba...

Have the Dales planners gone to see how intrusive the mast at the pub actually looks? It struck me that it would hardly be visible from the road.

Has LN Comms really taken over from Airwave?

At the planning meeting, I got the impression that there would become a split in responsibilities, such that Airwave would "own" more of the backhaul side of things, while a "local ISP" would interface to subscribers, and be responsible for the antenna installation. I'm not surprised to see LN involved

Airwave still in control as they have the BDUK money however the trial ends March and Airwave are allowed to walk away so there is a possibility of asset transfer as after all the masts are technically ours. Planners muy have visited. Only 1 of the disputed masts, the one in the pub car park was erected and all through the SUmmer it is hidden by trees - I sent a photo to members of the Planning Committee. There were a few spots where visible and more so now leaves down but it is brown. However planning permission was for only 2 years.
As for the high mast virtually invisible from most anges - looks like a matchstick from the village
The big annoyance is that so many are stuck on substandard speeds due to their contracts and ISPs should be forced to cancel these unless they can match speeds. Flying pig time.
I use Amazon Prime and yesterday it was telling me it was getting 11.1 Mb/s on my 10 Mb/s service.

Fingers crossed for the BT number change. BT charged £36 to lose my broadband and £20 to lose my number.

The wind speeds today are testing all the aerials stability - seems OK.

I wrote the stuff on Pip's patch!!