In reply to a post by gah789:

You and others from the area affected should contact your local councillor(s) about this as well as the chairman of the committee which oversees CDS and even your MP. As noted, you have been given incorrect information about the eligibility of your cabinet to be upgraded under the BDUK program. It seems that the person at CDS who responded to your query simply does understand the state aid provisions.

The only circumstances under which there could be any doubt would be if a part of your postcode was covered by an upgraded cabinet and a part not, but even then the uncovered part would not be debarred by state aid rules. None of this will guarantee that your cabinet passes the CDS threshold for spending money on upgrades. Still, at least they ought to assess the cost and give you a proper justification as to whether it is economic to upgrade your cabinet rather than making spurious claims about state aid.

gah789 please can you point me to your references regarding the State Aid provisions, you seem to suggest that BDUK is wrong. I am unable to find anything comprehensible and directly relevant. Thanks!

I did not intend to suggest that BDUK was wrong. They are not directly concerned with implementation. My point concerned the interpretation of state aid provisions on the ground. The rules are abstruse at best and the interpretation tends to change over time as well as differing across authorities.

Nonetheless, the essential idea is simple: public money should not be provided to fund non-commercial development of broadband infrastructure when and where there is an operator who is committed to providing equivalent infrastructure on a purely commercial basis. This requires that an authority must assess whether, for any given area, there is a commercial operator willing to provide superfast broadband on a non-subsidised basis. This assessment is carried out at postcode - not exchange - level and gives rise to the terminology of black, grey & white areas.

There is also a separate concern, which is that there should be only one allocation of public money to fund infrastructure in a specific area - i.e. money should not be given to both BT and some alternative provider to improve services in area X.

The mistake on the part of Connecting Devon & Somerset (CDS) was an assumption that because some cabinets connected to a particular exchange had been upgraded by BT on a commercial basis then other cabinets connected to the same exchange (but not upgraded) were excluded from being upgraded using BDUK money. This is inconsistent with the use of postcodes rather than exchanges as the basic unit of assessment for applying state aid restrictions.

The whole state aid exercise may be implemented in a bureaucratic and sometimes foolish manner, but the basic principles are reasonable. Hence, if local officials are implementing the rules in a way that is not reasonable and coherent, it is the job of your public representatives to ensure that common sense prevails as far as possible. Excluding people in an area that BT has clearly & publicly announced will not be upgraded on a commercial basis from the BDUK program certainly does not meet the standard for being reasonable and coherent - hence my comment.

Hi,

As I seem to have posted this information to another thread on this forum in the past, I will repeat it here.

The exchange is BARNSTAPLE, North Devon (WWBARN), and PCP 62.

Regards

Iain

I have raised this issue with my local County Councillor and MP for there input/advice.

The local councillor has already responded that he will "try and find out" more.

Thanks

Iain

In reply to a post by Iain_Chapman:

I have raised this issue with my local County Councillor and MP for there input/advice.

The local councillor has already responded that he will "try and find out" more.

Thanks

Iain

CDS say 'Additional areas will shortly be fibre-enabled under the Connecting Devon and Somerset Programme and service is likely to be available from June '14.'

Thanks gah for the detailed clarification. I am in Teignmouth, lots of cabs being missed out here. I will approach a manager at CDS and battle with them - if one can be found....

Somerset,

Yes, I've also now seen that (the page seems to be dated 26th July).

It's a shame that CDS didn't perhaps provide a link to the new map, rather suggest (along with an older map) that it wouldn't/couldn't invest where there is already an investment by BT (which was the indication on there older map and from CDS).

Still I'll be interested to see what response comes from the councillor and/or MP.

Thanks

Iain

Hi All,

To follow up on this thread. I had a response from the office of my local MP.

They had connected Openreach, and the reply back indicated that now that they have CDS money they aim to have my cabinet connected by March 2014.

Regards

Iain

Good result, I've tried my local council to see if they have similar funding in Birmingham - seems as if we don't

Oh well

Hi everyone,

I've set up a couple of petitions on the government's e-petition site that you might be interested in. If so, can you publicise them as much as possible around your networks? BT really are taking the mick. Let me know if you have a better worded petition and I'll sign and distribute them.

The petitions are:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/56926 and
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/59168