A MESSAGE FROM BOTESDALE PARISH COUNCIL
High speed broadband from County Broadband
The most asked question by prospective house buyers is ‘what are the local schools like?’ The second most asked is ‘what broadband speeds do you get?’. With so many of us now using Zoom, Google Meets, Skype and other platforms, streaming TV and film, and working or schooling from home – the demand on the broadband network is increasing all the time. This has become even more evident during the ongoing pandemic.
Your existing broadband service can be provided by a number of companies such as Talk-Talk, PlusNet, BT and Sky. Whichever provider you use, the infrastructure remains the same; all of them use Openreach equipment. Much like the supply of electricity to your home, irrespective of who you pay your bill to, it remains the same level and quality of broadband coming through the cable.
Your current ‘fibre’ internet service is provided by a fibre optic cable running from the exchange to one of the green roadside cabinets that Openreach maintain. From the cabinet to your home, the signal runs through copper phone cables never designed for the purpose of data transmission. Those copper cables can carry the signal, but it loses effectiveness over even a short distance. Those homes close to the cabinet can get a good service but those living more than a few hundred metres from it might find themselves with a signal so poor it is unusable.
To cope with increasing demand and improve the aging system, Botesdale would benefit from a fibre network to each household. Fibre broadband gives significantly faster download and upload speeds than are currently available, and equally important, more bandwidth to increase capacity on the network.
Unfortunately, despite Government commitment to high-speed or ‘gigabit’ broadband for everyone there is currently no prospect of Openreach putting in ‘fibre to the premises’ broadband services to rural villages.
County Broadband is offering to install ‘fibre to the premises’ broadband to all homes in Botesdale and they have funds available (backed by Aviva) to proceed with the project as soon as they have evidence of sufficient interest.
County Broadband are OFCOM regulated and most importantly they have license to use Openreach infrastructure such as telegraph poles and underground ducting and chambers so there is minimal disruption during installation. In most cases, the fibre cable will simply run alongside the existing cable rather than replacing it. Installation is free during this initial offer, so even if you sign up and then choose to stick with your old copper cables, the availability of fibre to the premises will enhance your property value.
The Parish Council has looked at what County Broadband are offering and supports this improvement to the infrastructure in the village. You will have seen the publicity material that was sent to every home with information on how to register your interest. Please let County Broadband know you are interested so that you will receive an invitation to a webinar where they will describe the services they can provide. There is no commitment at this stage but if registration numbers are not high enough (at least 40%), County Broadband will move their efforts and resources elsewhere and Botesdale will lose this opportunity. We strongly encourage you to sign up to find out more – while the Parish Council is supportive of the project, this is a decision for each household.
Please do give this matter serious consideration and register.
Go to www.countybroadband.co.uk and enter your postcode to find out more and register your interest. If you have any queries you will find the staff at County Broadband extremely knowledgeable and helpful. You can contact Jonny Spinks on jonathan.spinks@countybroadband.co.uk or 07507 975965
Botesdale Parish Council