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Universal broadband? Not just yet
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SEEDA (the lead broadband agency amongst the RDAs) resisted calls to co-ordinate a single pan-regional bid to provide universal broadband, instead requiring local communities attached to unenabled exchanges to undertake their own local tendering processes. Ashbury completed this process a year ago, but still they wait. At the time of going to press, Ashbury still don't have a Ready for Service (RFS) date, and Samknows cites February 2007 as a possible go live date.
So is February 2007 an end to their wait? Apparently not, the community have been told that they will have to wait some time beyond the eventual RFS date to order BT's Max service. One frustrated campaigner said: "At some stage I would just like to be pleasantly surprised by some aspect of this. But every time, on every issue, it's always the worst answer: the longest possible installation time, the slowest speed they can get away with, the biggest delay in signing the contract, doubling the price from the first estimate, etc."
Universal broadband? Not just yet.
March 6th 2007 update: David Cooper, Telecommunications Development Manager from SEEDA, has been in touch about this article. We are awaiting an addenda/correction for the article from SEEDA. It seems that where we said "local" it may have been misunderstood as being, literally, "parochial".....
Meanwhile, David wrote:
Ashbury as a community did not undertake their own local tendering process. SEEDA encouraged the Vale of the White Horse District Council to undertake this work on their behalf. This was the modus operandi for the other projects where SEEDA have been involved ( e.g. working with Surrey, Hampshire etc). Ashbury was enabled in December last year (2006).
The previous BT RFS date was brought forward from 02/07 to 12/06, and as of 25/01/07, this exchange is SDSL enabled (that's a symmetrical connection - there are not that many SDSL enabled exchanges in the UK, make the most of it!).
We will post any more from SEEDA as and when we get it.
If you live in Ashbury, please let us know whether you are all now connected.
