Well it has taken a while with this small project being merged into a slightly larger project which in turn has been merged in to a much larger project covering most of the village and outlying properties. From this 7 property project we are now part of an 800-odd property project and approval has been gained
The cost of the project is about £575k and with just over 100 properties having pledged their gigabit vouchers so far the target is already 41% met. To have the project fully funded will need about 250 households to sign up out of the 800 so I'm hoping and praying that the target should be easily met once word is spread about the good news.

Great news, keep us updated on your progress!

I'm in the process of starting a CFP for our area. Was supposed to be just for 10 properties, but now expanded to 58 (not all actual lived in addresses! Ie, farm buildings and stables!!). I'm expecting this to grow again to cover much of the village (some of which gets less than 10Mbps but is quite a distance from the original intended CFP area!) once the planners do their bit.

In reply to a post by slimj:

Great news, keep us updated on your progress!

I'm in the process of starting a CFP for our area. Was supposed to be just for 10 properties, but now expanded to 58 (not all actual lived in addresses! Ie, farm buildings and stables!!). I'm expecting this to grow again to cover much of the village (some of which gets less than 10Mbps but is quite a distance from the original intended CFP area!) once the planners do their bit.

We're at 88% of target met, but the pledge rate has slowed down dramatically from the initial surge. The problem we have is actually getting the word out that people can pledge the vouchers, and dealing with a lot of ignorance.

Common comments are along the lines of...

- I put my postcode in and it says I'm not eligible (This is usually from people in parts of the village where FTTH is already available but they don't appear to know that they can already get it)

- I don't want to take out a 12 month contract (I usually answer that by saying unless you are giving up broadband completely in the next year or two you have nothing to be concerned about)

- We're being asked to commit for 12 months without knowing what prices will be (I point them to the BT website showing that entry level fibre costs the same as BT ADSL and has done for a while and things aren't likely to change)

- Only extreme users need fibre, ADSL is fine for most people (one person on the village fb site reckons she can have 2 or 3 computers on when working from home along with three simultaneous Netflix streams on a 10Mb connection!)

- fibre is too expensive (wrong!)

So, a lot of ignorance that I'm doing my best to overcome, but the biggest problem is getting the word out that people can sign up and that if they do fibre *will* come at no cost to them. If anybody has any ideas on how to get the word out effectively that would be a big help.

iteresting if it got farm building and stables not lived in - they the number of premises you back from openreach (once "planners" have looked at that will be less - interesting is the "planners" your term or someone elses

In reply to a post by Fastman3:

iteresting if it got farm building and stables not lived in - they the number of premises you back from openreach (once "planners" have looked at that will be less - interesting is the "planners" your term or someone elses

'Planning & design team' was the term provided to me from our Rural Engagement Manager. Number of premesis remained the same at 58. Just awaiting voucher approval and access to the website for residents to pledge vouchers.

Should likely to be able to start the next stage (pledging vouchers) by early January.

In reply to a post by sjr:

- I don't want to take out a 12 month contract (I usually answer that by saying unless you are giving up broadband completely in the next year or two you have nothing to be concerned about)

They would normally take out a contract for ADSL/FTTC anyway, so it's no different. They will effectively get a better/faster service for the same money (depending on what they pay now).

In reply to a post by sjr:

- We're being asked to commit for 12 months without knowing what prices will be (I point them to the BT website showing that entry level fibre costs the same as BT ADSL and has done for a while and things aren't likely to change)

If anything, in the next 12-18 months, things could become more competitive with better bang for the buck. I've used the Sky 160Mbps package as a great value example for £35, while there are no guarantees it's likely that this price may drop as further tiers are announced.

In reply to a post by sjr:

- Only extreme users need fibre, ADSL is fine for most people (one person on the village fb site reckons she can have 2 or 3 computers on when working from home along with three simultaneous Netflix streams on a 10Mb connection!)

How much is she paying for that service? It could be likely that she could receive a faster and more reliable service for no extra cost. From my experience, a portion of our village that is on less than 10Mbps are all complaining about connection issues.

In reply to a post by sjr:

So, a lot of ignorance that I'm doing my best to overcome, but the biggest problem is getting the word out that people can sign up and that if they do fibre *will* come at no cost to them. If anybody has any ideas on how to get the word out effectively that would be a big help.

I think making the point that they are going to get a faster, more reliable, future proofed service for no additional cost is key (future proofed - being able to upgrade from 40 > 80 > 160 > 330 > 500 > 1Gbps+ at the click of the button when the need arises). They may be happy with their connection at the moment, but in 2-3 years they may really be struggling and as such will be complaining as to why Openreach have not done anything about it!

You're preaching to the converted here but the level of ignorance is staggering.

Another one: I have EE broadband and if I get fibre from them I can't have a landline. (Wrong again, EE website says it is an £8/month option. And even if that were true, just take your custom elsewhere).

Anyway we're now sitting at 93% of target reached so *hopefully* we'll get there. It is however disappointing we haven't got there yet when I hear the amount of moaning about rubbish broadband in the village.

Well I'm pleased to report that the target for funding was reached and Openreach have said we'll have fibre by the end of summer (whenever that is!). There have been a fair few road closures in the area in the past few weeks for Openreach to carry out work and we can see where they have hung fibre on the telegraph poles going down our road and even up in to the farm track where we live.Hopefully not too long now. It has been a long old slog since I first mooted the idea of a CFP to the 7 properties on the farm estate and the project has grown a lot in size since then, but we're nearly there.