To install Internet in our village hall or not ?

Hello, I'm a member of a village hall committee. We are all elderly and only just computer literate.
Some want the village hall to have Internet, others think it would be a waste of time and money.
Two questions please..... what can our village community gain from having Internet in the hall and how much should we expect to pay gor this monthly. We have been quoted £44 per month but need to be able to justify this spend if its not going to be put to good use. Thank you so much for any help and advice.

Some potential benefits off the top of my head for your ‘business case’..

1. (Marketing). The hall having WiFi for guests and visitors to use, hall rentals etc.
2. (Security). As a means for remotely accessing CCTV cameras and recorders etc.
3. (Administration). Potentially for remote access of heating and security systems etc. May reduce gas and electricity usage or as a convenience and/or security factor as controls are at the disposal of trusted folks without them having to be physically present to switch on/off change temps enable hot water etc.

If local mobile signal isn’t particularly good or reliable then it strengthens the case for some of the above somewhat.

Is there a good 4g signal at this location ?

If so, a one off payment for a router, and a data sim …. Could avoid line rental costs, and be cheaper over all.

Is there anyone on your local parish council who could help you.
Where about are you ?.
What speed was quoted for £44 ?.

Also, our Chairman is getting a call back from the company thus week and has asked the rest of the committee to let him know what questions we should ask.
I don't think we really know what we should be asking. I'm just concerned that for £44 per month we may not be getting value for money

Thank you. I tried to suggest a pay as you go sim but the rep from the broadband company seems to have convinced the chairman that he's getting a good deal to have free installation, making the £44 per month not look so bad. I'm worried that initially we may not know what to use thus extra facility fir, and therefore not get value for money.

We are due to get 4g in a nearby building soon. At present there is no good signal available.
Thank uou

Thank you.
Do you know if it can also be used to stream events from the hall, or to have for example a Zumba teacher hold a virtual class to a group in the hall?
I think entertainment options woukd carry more weight with the current committee, so if you can suggest any other uses, that would be great.
Thank you so much

An Internet connection is something many people have at home. At one location I pay £23 per month for a service. The price includes the cost of the phone line but not phone calls.

The Sevenoaks (Population about 19,000) town library has may be a dozen computers connected to the Internet for free public use. I don't think that my local village hall has an Internet connection.

If your village hall was to have an Internet connection for public use, how would you expect people to make use of this? Would they have to arrive with their laptops and make use of a Wifi signal. If so, if they are going to stay for some time they may want access to a power outlet.

If there are people in your community that can't afford an Internet connection it maybe that they can benefit from any future proposals to address the problem of digital inclusion.

In reply to a post by Sue4159:

Also, our Chairman is getting a call back from the company thus week and has asked the rest of the committee to let him know what questions we should ask.
I don't think we really know what we should be asking. I'm just concerned that for £44 per month we may not be getting value for money

You really need to get a number of quotes which should specify the details of the service to be provided.

Streaming from the hall can be done. I wouldn't be surprised if a local church doesn't do that already and may be able to advise.

Watching a remote instructor should be fine, given a large enough screen. That could be the problem!
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From all this stuff about "the company", it sounds like your chairman is in the grip of a pushy salesperson. I suggest you put the address of the hall into the address option of this BT checker and post a screenshot to one of the free sites and give us a link.

We need the table and the line above it with the exchange and cabinet number. (Leave the exchange and cabinet in but remove the address)

We will then be able to give much more detailed advice.

Provided the bandwidth is high enough you can easily stream.

The two key questions to ask:

What is te undelying delivery method? FTTP or FTTC

What is the forecast/estimated speed for teh line in BOTH Up and Down directions?

It will be a lot easier to advise on whether it is good value and what can be done with it if there are answers to those question. And £44/ could be or might not be good value and does that include VAT.

In reply to a post by Sue4159:

Some want the village hall to have Internet

Have those who want internet within the village hall outlined why it is needed? to change from not having it to having it they really should be presenting to the committee the reasons why it would be beneficial to the community.

There is a lot of help available on the internet for people in your situation. As I understand it, part of the remit delegated to County Councils by the government is to improve broadband access for community assets like village halls. A number of local and county councils have some introductory notes available (for example Cambridgeshire at https://www.connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk/wp-conten... or Cumbria at https://cumbria.gov.uk/elibrary/Content/Internet/536...). Your own County Council (if it is not one of the two shown above) will probably have the same sort of information and will also have people you can contact who can take you through the whole process and answer your questions.

If you are in England, there is also ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England) who have a support section for Village Halls at https://acre.org.uk/our-work/village-halls.php. There are probably similar bodies for the other countries in the United Kingdom. Both County Council and ACRE will be able to advise what grants are available to help with the installation and running costs for broadband. Our own village hall in Northumberland had broadband installed a couple of years ago; as far as I am aware, the whole installation was paid from grants. Since the first relaxation of the latest lockdown restrictions, our Parish Council meetings have been held with a small socially distanced gathering in the village hall but streamed out on Zoom so that all residents can keep in touch with what is going and add their input where the Chair allows.

In light of all the information available from the sources above it would certainly be wise to consider other options available rather than just the offering to your Chair from one business trying to make a sale.

Thanks Zarjaz, there will be a good signal when we get the new mast installed in the church tower, which should happen soon. I tried to argue the case for a router and a data sim, but the others couldn't grasp the concept and think we need to have a phone line in the building for it to work.

Thank you.
The chairman seems to think this is fibre to the building. The hall does not have a postcode so it makes it difficult to get a comparison. I think the company quoting are the only ones in the area who will do the job, but thats if we go down that route. I wanted to avoid costly monthly contract fees as we don't know how successful this will be at the moment. Only time will tell.

Thank you.
As far as I know it is fibre to the building.
Speed estimates are 100 download and 50 upload
£44 per month including vat

What is the general postcode/village or a house close by. Surprised it does not have one though - Royal Mail normally cover every building.


And which company is quoting?

It's DT11 0RE
Wessex Internet

Thank you

Go to https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/...

Enter the Postcode ONLY sort out Captcha and then it will give a list of properties, including teh village hall.

Work though those and you will see ADSL can be obtained at some properties with 80/20. The price of that could be significantly lower than £44.

And 80/20 might be good enough

In reply to a post by Sue4159:

It's DT11 0RE
Wessex Internet

For what its worth, enter your postcode into the Gigabit Vouchers scheme
I suspect you might find you are coming in under this scheme as Wessex Internet are mentioned as being active in the area. I see from their website the speed on offer is 100/50mbps.

Edit, fwiw, we have WiFi installed in the village hall here, it does get used when events are being held. Even more so as the mobile signals aren't too good. Of course with fttp most can be upgraded quite easily if the need arises.

Edited by 69bertie (Thu 01-Jul-21 20:40:36)

I pay £16.97 for ADSL (Business) internet connection inc VAT.

Looks like 6Mbps download and almost zilch upload? Which wouldn't approach meeting the requirements in ether direction..

FTTC should be fine.

Having thought about this and with the postcode, I can see that 59 & 62 can get a near 80/20 service on FTTC. As there is discussion about whether £44/month for FTTP is too much and if Internat is needed or would get used, my suggestion would be to go for an FTTC service which you should be able to get for a lot less than £44 and monitor usage over a year. Then, look at upgrades.

+1

We have a Plusnet FTTC connection in our village hall running at 40/10 (it would run faster if we upgraded to 80/20)

Using Plusnet's loyalty/referral scheme, our bills are now £11.49 per month

Thank you very much. I have passed your comments to our chairman.

I would just like to add a comment about the benefits of having internet available in a village hall. Our hall gets hired for many events including weddings and children's parties. We have a business broadband account from BT and that gives a "free" guest wi-fi service from the Hub so that visitors can get wi-fi without us having to risk misuse of our own account.
The hall itself has a metal roof that cellular signals fail to penetrate so the wi-fi is invaluable and makes hiring our hall more attractive. If you hire out your hall then if having wi-fi available attracts more hires then the cost is soon recovered.
I won't comment on the price that you have quoted other than to emphasise how important it is to shop around and also check what grants or support might be available before making any commitment.
Please also assure your fellow members that you do not need a phone line to use a 4G signal with a router. You could test this out just using a smartphone as a wireless hotspot.

In reply to a post by chriswillsher:

We have a business broadband account from BT and that gives a "free" guest wi-fi service from the Hub so that visitors can get wi-fi without us having to risk misuse of our own account.

Very essential - as any downloads will be linked back to the Hall, you don't want to be held responsible for any unpleasant downloads.

Also - one thing that I haven't seen mentioned is whether the Hall has an existing phone line which is used for an alarm connection.

Due to BT upgrades a number of years ago our alarm would no longer connect to the monitoring station so we had to upgrade part of our system - subsequently a nearby lightning strike triggered a power surge which fried the unit and we replaced it with a 4G card. So a talk to your alarm company would be useful.

Are you a member of a local advisory body - we have had a lot of guidance from Action in Rural Sussex as well as ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England), their umbrella body.

As another poster has mentioned - you need to think about why you are considering an internet connection. Do not go with it just because other halls have it these days or one or two people ask for it, as it will simply be another expense without a corresponding real benefit to the Hall. Get a proper justification written up by the advocates and discuss it thoroughly in committee - preferably face to face as email or individual conversations are too stilted and one comment may trigger something which hadn't previously been thought of. You need to be reasonably sure that the facility will bring in more hirers or at the very least retain those that you have.

Who is likely to use it and for what purposes? Don't forget to factor the cost into your hiring fees. Rather than look to charge actual users alone, we have treated the facility like gas/electricity and so everybody pays slightly more. Only a few of our users need access, but instead of fighting individual objections nobody notices a general (smaller) overall increase!

In reply to a post by MHC:

What is the general postcode/village or a house close by. Surprised it does not have one though - Royal Mail normally cover every building.

Our Hall has been in place for around 60 years, but according to the Royal Mail post code file we didn't exist (didn't stop them putting bills through our letterbox though!).

I had to contact our local District Council, who provided the necessary information to Royal Mail to get us added.

Hi Sue,
You haven't explained how many local residents have broadband at home, although from your comments about familiarity with the internet suggest that not many do.

I think having a public node that people can use to get familiar with the internet would be a useful asset for any community where access is limited by geography or preference.

You will have discovered that more and more services (Government. local authority and private) are accessed via the internet - how are people managing at the moment?

In reply to a post by Sue4159:

Thank you.
As far as I know it is fibre to the building.
Speed estimates are 100 download and 50 upload
£44 per month including vat

Before any contracts are agreed, get everything in writing to avoid future misunderstandings.

Also - if you go down the full fibre route, will you want/have a voice connection (also applies to some other types of connection such as alarms)? If you do, doublecheck as this will be an extra cost. We have a good speed without going down the fibre route but we can now get a full fibre connection for around £40 per month - however that does not include the phone line, so we would pay almost three times our current charge merely for an increase in speed.