Thanks for that. I'm aware of the discussions re Parish and other funding (my wife is a parish counsellor) but wasn't clear on the timescale. Is there any understanding about whether the current BDUK approach will also bring in LLU to allow the likes of Sky to offer services, It will be only a partial victory if the next broadband step does not facilitate genuine competition (i.e not just reselling). I'm fed up with watching Sky ads for their various broadband based packages and services that I'm never likely to be able to use.

BDUK funding really gives both responsibility and control to the local council, provided they put matching funds in too.

The combined funds are then available to any commercial partner that the council chooses - so it depends whether the council are attracted to the idea of extra competition.

Of course, it won't really be competition... as it is likely to be just a single partner still, if only on a wholesale level. Once deployment gets going, the choice to the consumer will almost certainly be Hobson's.

Are we confident that the Berkshire bid for funding will be brought together and submitted satisfactorily in the correct timescale or is there something more that we can do and need to do to make it happen? It would be galling if, this time next month, we discover that there has been some omission which we could all have done something about.

In reply to a post by stricko:

Thanks for that. I'm aware of the discussions re Parish and other funding (my wife is a parish counsellor) but wasn't clear on the timescale. Is there any understanding about whether the current BDUK approach will also bring in LLU to allow the likes of Sky to offer services, It will be only a partial victory if the next broadband step does not facilitate genuine competition (i.e not just reselling). I'm fed up with watching Sky ads for their various broadband based packages and services that I'm never likely to be able to use.

Hi, the timescale between April once the plan has been approved and December 2012 is when the tender will go out and be awarded. Work will either start end of 2012 or by 2013 depending on how quickly the tender process will take.
BT as i have mentioned before will be the likely winners as the other compeitors have dropped out in a lot of tenders due to not wanting to invest the required amount.
LLU providers are unable to bid for bduk funds as they do not provide wholesale access, but what you will have if BT win, will be their FTTC service which you can buy from any isp that resells it- sky have announced their first FTTC package which will come live this year.

The main problem for genunie comption in this country is few isps are willing to invest the amount needed to create a 2nd local network, as BT's expansion gathers pace the majority of the country up to 90% will have a fibre service.
It has been estimated to cost about 29 billion pounds to create a full FTTP network in this country, at current there is no single isp with that amount of funding willing to commit to such a plan. Goverment has only made up to less then a billion in investment for next gen broadband, a small amount to encourage the market to deliver further. The other main problem is that their needs to be a demand for 100Mbps and faster packages from the public, which is very small as the majority are happy with lower speed packages.

Ivy at current all 6 unitary bodies will meet their individual financial commitments to the program, so it is unlikely to not make the deadlines. Their are safeguards to ensure funding if not all can be raised before the deadline, if its needed to be used.

The majority of parishes have commited their funding but their are those that are still to come in and others that have refused to fund the program in west berkshire.

Just a small update, things are progressing on time with the LBP and are likely to be early for the April deadline for the main submission.

Thank you for all these updates. I live in Curridge and Hermitage is my local exchange. If I can typically get 5.5Mbps down and 380kbps up now, what am I likely to get once upgrade is complete and improvements implemented?

On 21CN will likely see about 6-7 Mbps down and about 1Mbps up.

With FTTC which will likely come to the area with the superfast broadband prodject- the distance from the cab to your house will determine the speed, i would assume you are either on the b4009 or on curridge road the closest cabinet is number 2 which is at the junction of the b4009/curridge road.

If you are within about 600 meters then you will likely see 40 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up- this is moving up to 80/20 on April the 10th, so FTTC will give vast improvement to lines in the area.

In reply to a post by ccxo:

On 21CN will likely see about 6-7 Mbps down and about 1Mbps up.

With FTTC which will likely come to the area with the superfast broadband prodject- the distance from the cab to your house will determine the speed, i would assume you are either on the b4009 or on curridge road the closest cabinet is number 2 which is at the junction of the b4009/curridge road.

If you are within about 600 meters then you will likely see 40 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up- this is moving up to 80/20 on April the 10th, so FTTC will give vast improvement to lines in the area.

Many thanks -- we are about 2,300 metres from the Hermitage exchange and about 600 metres from the junction of Curridge Road/Long Lane. FTTC sounds great, when is that coming?

Edited by deleted (Thu 15-Mar-12 18:23:07)

Well at current their has not been anymore FTTC deployment in West Berkshire, only Newbury Hungerford and Thatcham have been enabled.
Tadley is the next closest exchange to get enable but thats Hampshire, the eastern parts of Berkshire are quite well served.
Coming back to West Berks, unless BT continue to rollout commerically which they may, we will have to wait for the superfast berkshire program to go to tender once the final plan has been approved by BDUK.

The final plan has been submitted so approval should not take long and into procurement which will select a winning tender.
This will likely BT who will then with discussions with the council decide where the spend the funding and then begin upgrading which will likely start in 2013 though we may see work start this year.

I'd have thought that Berkshire would have been a prime area for BT to install superfast broadband to considering the number of technology companies in the area and presumably the number of people living in the area who work for said companies and could work from home a lot of the time.