Deja vu
Posted by Colin Balkham in
Saturday, August 27. 2011
So here we are again. Our illustrious County Council soon will be in receipt of large sums of government money to enhance broadband across the county. I have little confidence that the money will be spent wisely - these after all, are the same people who brought us South West One. The following is a quote from the Hulture Secretary ::
"I am absolutely determined that the UK will have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015 – one that we all benefit from. Fast broadband is absolutely vital to our economic growth, to delivering public services effectively, and to conducting our everyday lives.
But some areas of the UK are missing out, with many rural and hard-to-reach communities suffering painfully slow internet connections or no coverage at all. We are not prepared to let some parts of our country get left behind in the digital age.
The Government is investing £530 million of public money to help bring broadband to every home and business in the UK. We are doing our part – it is now up to local authorities and the Scottish Government to do their bit, to get on board and work with us to secure the social and economic future of their communities.
I urge all those suffering the frustration of slow internet connections to make it clear to your local elected representatives that you expect them to do what is needed to access this investment and to deliver broadband to your community."
It is rumoured that the moneys will be channelled directly to BT or a satellite company.
Health warning ! I receive an enviable wireless service from an independent supplier. This service has served us well for the past 5 years so I may be a little biased
If our councillors in all their wisdom were to channel the money into competitive services it is not without the bounds of possibility that this subsidised competition would result in our current supplier becoming unviable. This would mean that we and other remote rural communities would be plunged back into the dark ages of dial-up or, almost as bad, medieval satellite. Some ten days ago we wrote to County Councillor Christine Lawrence as follows :
"Dear Christine
We were given your details by Annie Powell, Clerk to Luxborough Parish Council.
As I am sure you are aware, Somerset and Devon County Councils have been awarded in excess of 30 million pounds to improve internet access to their respective counties. We are extremely concerned that much of this money will be lost in "admin costs" and the rest directed straight to the coffers of BT.
Many of us in the remoter parts of Exmoor would regard this as an extremely damaging and retrograde step. We currently enjoy, as do many in both Devon and Dorset, a high quality wireless broadband provided by South West Internet CIC. It is our understanding that South West Internet already have the equipment to provide those of us in remote areas with an extremely high speed service, several times the 8Mbps symmetrical service we currently enjoy. We understand, from South West Internet, that they have been starved of funds by Somerset County Council to improve and expand their network. We believe the funding required would be a small percentage of the moneys now available to improve broadband services and, if the money were available, these much faster services could be available very quickly.
If this funding is diverted to BT, there is a danger that those of us without the more populous areas will be pushed back to the internet dark ages since it is impossible for a relatively small company such as South West Internet to compete with a BT monolith in receipt of public funding. BT will simply cherry pick the more profitable areas which will undermine the viability of companies such as South West Internet. If South West Internet were to be unable to continue trading, we in the remoter parts would have no broadband access at all. BT have failed, despite many promises over the last 5 or 6 years to provide any kind of service and, since there is little profit to be made from the smaller hamlets and remoter farms, we cannot see this situation changing simply because they receive a few millions of taxpayers' money.
It would appear that this would be a fairly clear case of unfair competition and we have no wish to see this happen and would welcome your assistance in ensuring that it does not happen.
In view of the threats to business and community on Exmoor, we have decided to resurrect the campaigning website Broadband4Exmoor (http://www.broadband4exmoor.co.uk). We would hope to have this fully operational within the next few days and would welcome any input you feel able to make. We will, as we did before, also be mounting a media campaign to try to protect our position. We should mention that other than purchasing our broadband backhaul we have no connection, either commercial or otherwise, with South West Internet. We are simply a very satisfied customer. We run the community broadband project in Luxborough which over the last 7 years has provided broadband to the 3 hamlets, and outlying farms, using the backhaul provided at competitive rates by West Somerset Internet.
If you would like to discuss this then we are also available by phone on xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxx."
So far no reply...........
I propose to send something similar to our MP Ian Liddell-Granger. If I receive the courtesy of a reply I'll post again.
"I am absolutely determined that the UK will have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015 – one that we all benefit from. Fast broadband is absolutely vital to our economic growth, to delivering public services effectively, and to conducting our everyday lives.
But some areas of the UK are missing out, with many rural and hard-to-reach communities suffering painfully slow internet connections or no coverage at all. We are not prepared to let some parts of our country get left behind in the digital age.
The Government is investing £530 million of public money to help bring broadband to every home and business in the UK. We are doing our part – it is now up to local authorities and the Scottish Government to do their bit, to get on board and work with us to secure the social and economic future of their communities.
I urge all those suffering the frustration of slow internet connections to make it clear to your local elected representatives that you expect them to do what is needed to access this investment and to deliver broadband to your community."
It is rumoured that the moneys will be channelled directly to BT or a satellite company.
Health warning ! I receive an enviable wireless service from an independent supplier. This service has served us well for the past 5 years so I may be a little biased
If our councillors in all their wisdom were to channel the money into competitive services it is not without the bounds of possibility that this subsidised competition would result in our current supplier becoming unviable. This would mean that we and other remote rural communities would be plunged back into the dark ages of dial-up or, almost as bad, medieval satellite. Some ten days ago we wrote to County Councillor Christine Lawrence as follows :"Dear Christine
We were given your details by Annie Powell, Clerk to Luxborough Parish Council.
As I am sure you are aware, Somerset and Devon County Councils have been awarded in excess of 30 million pounds to improve internet access to their respective counties. We are extremely concerned that much of this money will be lost in "admin costs" and the rest directed straight to the coffers of BT.
Many of us in the remoter parts of Exmoor would regard this as an extremely damaging and retrograde step. We currently enjoy, as do many in both Devon and Dorset, a high quality wireless broadband provided by South West Internet CIC. It is our understanding that South West Internet already have the equipment to provide those of us in remote areas with an extremely high speed service, several times the 8Mbps symmetrical service we currently enjoy. We understand, from South West Internet, that they have been starved of funds by Somerset County Council to improve and expand their network. We believe the funding required would be a small percentage of the moneys now available to improve broadband services and, if the money were available, these much faster services could be available very quickly.
If this funding is diverted to BT, there is a danger that those of us without the more populous areas will be pushed back to the internet dark ages since it is impossible for a relatively small company such as South West Internet to compete with a BT monolith in receipt of public funding. BT will simply cherry pick the more profitable areas which will undermine the viability of companies such as South West Internet. If South West Internet were to be unable to continue trading, we in the remoter parts would have no broadband access at all. BT have failed, despite many promises over the last 5 or 6 years to provide any kind of service and, since there is little profit to be made from the smaller hamlets and remoter farms, we cannot see this situation changing simply because they receive a few millions of taxpayers' money.
It would appear that this would be a fairly clear case of unfair competition and we have no wish to see this happen and would welcome your assistance in ensuring that it does not happen.
In view of the threats to business and community on Exmoor, we have decided to resurrect the campaigning website Broadband4Exmoor (http://www.broadband4exmoor.co.uk). We would hope to have this fully operational within the next few days and would welcome any input you feel able to make. We will, as we did before, also be mounting a media campaign to try to protect our position. We should mention that other than purchasing our broadband backhaul we have no connection, either commercial or otherwise, with South West Internet. We are simply a very satisfied customer. We run the community broadband project in Luxborough which over the last 7 years has provided broadband to the 3 hamlets, and outlying farms, using the backhaul provided at competitive rates by West Somerset Internet.
If you would like to discuss this then we are also available by phone on xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxx."
So far no reply...........
I propose to send something similar to our MP Ian Liddell-Granger. If I receive the courtesy of a reply I'll post again.
