Well it's welcome to the public sector again - and probably EU rules.
After all we the public are always complaining about non visibility of public sector stuff - and this is the result.
So the change requires it to be re-tendered by everyone.

In a private sector contract this would simply be a contract variation.
Most engineering contracts I've been involved with are signed before the details are finalised based on a rough tender outline anyway and it is accepted by both sides that there will be modifications en-route and price variations as a result.
Indeed this is done precisly because if all the details were fully finalised prior to the contract being awarded the two results would be
1. Delays in the contract and delivery time frames possibly impacting the financing of and viability of the project in the first place.
2. The costs of doing a fully detailed tender for which you might never get the contract would be huge resulting in large overheads from the wasted work and hence an overall increase in general contract prices to cover this expense.

Well the commercial deployment continues and LITTLEWICK GREEN has gone live, just leaves Burghfield Common, due September as the last commerical exchange.

September update

July and August updates where missed as their was little to report and any updates where covered by the superfast berkshire site.

We are now in the final 2 weeks of September and the end of the procurement process for Superfast Berkshire, the contract signing with Openreach should be announced either this week or next.

The likely course of events will be planning from now till the beginning of next year and the rollout to start in early 2014 like other BDUK projects, this is subject to confirmation.

The project was due to finish procurement by the end of July 2013, however the OMR showed that BDUK underestimated the number of properties in the intervention area- further public funding was obtained through lobbying and then match funded.

The public investment is now about £4 million up from £3 million, as the increase was over 10% the 2nd part of procurement had to be restarted, hence the September end date.

Newbury PCP 46 is having a FTTC twin installed in early October Junction of Greenham Rd and Pinchington Ln.

Burghfield Common is still down as CS for September 2013, all work looks to be completed but their could be delays.

We are now in the final week of procurement, an announcement will be made before the 8th of October of the signing etc.

The contact has been signed and their are a few updates on the website about the project, a new timeline for the project going foward will be along soon.

The project will start surveying in early 2014 and work then following with the first connections by early Autumn, the project will have 4 phases of fibre deployment with the 5 being the 2 mb/s deployment which is county wide.

The project will complete by September 2015.

The link below is about coverage and has 2 links of which one is a breakdown of coverage figures and the second a early map title 'fibre coverage map' for the 4 phases of deployment.

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

As the survey work starts and moves ahead further updates will become available on the superfast berkshire website and the coverage map will update as plans are announced from the survery work.

Edited by deleted (Fri 04-Oct-13 17:45:03)

There has been discussion here on installs within cabinets at Littlewick Green exchange. I live between Maidenhead and Littlewick Green, just on the edge of Maidenhead and close to cabinet 75. There is currently a lot of Openreach cable laying going on locally. Does anyone know whether cabinet 75 has been enabled for fibre or if not when it is going to be? Thanks.

Their is nothing showing on roadworks.org between Maidenhead and Littlewick Green- the only activity is cabinet 1 on LittleWick Green exchange in Knowl Hill is being deployed 17-23 October this is commercial deployment.

As for Cabinet 75 on Maidenhead i do not have it on any of my lists- it would be best to contact Openreach on the NGA email, incluede your phone number and address as they will ask for this.

Turn-around is estimated at 2-3 week reply but its normally alot sooner but they will tell you if its part of the commercial deployment or part of the Berkshire project- map suggest possibly but its too vague.

[email protected]

December Update

From the Superfast Berkshire Website 'Superfast Berkshire continues to make good progress during the mobilisation and planning phase of the project in preparation for BT Openreach surveys starting at the beginning of 2014.'

Also the Berkshire RCBF State Consulatin was launched on the 10th of December and will run till the 10th January.

The document and coverage map for the 12 communities can be found on the below link.

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

I wonder how many of the "Superfast Berkshire" team live in the areas around Newbury? Everything is concentrated around there and nothing elsewhere in Berkshire such as some of the areas to te North West of Maidenhead.

Where the team live is irrelevent, West Berkshire applied for the RCBF funding in advance as it knew not all parishes would be covered by the main project, thers not enough money in the main pot.

From the anticipated coverage figures West Berkshire would only get to 79.2% superfast coverage, where as the other districts would all be over 90%.

If you look at the fibre coverage map for Berkshire the areas to the north and West of Maidenhead will be covered in phases 1 and 3, yet their are alot of areas missed in west berkshire and still will be even with the RCBF funding.

(Fibre coverage map and Anticipated coverage figures can be found in the link below.)

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