Penny Nagle, who lives on Horsington Marsh writes
Apparently super fast broadband is accessible now in the centre of Horsington village. Check here for your postcode : –
http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/default.aspx?pc=ba8
For the rest of us who are more than 1km from the box at the bottom of Stowell Lane things are not moving at all and it looks like they won’t for at least 18 months (from the website).
So I have drafted a letter to Kim Mears, Managing Director, Infrastructure Delivery, at Openreach.
We have 50 names on the list, Horsington School, five businesses and four farms asking for super fast broadband.
The main argument is that Openreach should not be considering population density for rollout in rural areas, but rather educational and business needs.
I have also copied in our local MP David Warburton, our District Councillor Tim Inglefield, Connecting Devon and Somerset, and our local Federation of Small Businesses contact person.
Blog readers can help by letting me me know if there is anyone else who can put their name to this list, particularly businesses and farms. I plan sending this very soon!
Thank you for your help so far! ~
Penny Nagle
pennynagle@gmail.com
Penny’s Letter to OpenReach:
If you would be happy to add your own name to this, plus your business if you have one, please contact Penny.
Dear Ms Mears,
Re : Super Fast Broadband Delivery – Horsington Village, Somerset – more than 1km from the Openreach box.
We write because we are the residents, school and businesses of Horsington Village more than 1km from the Openreach box and unable to access superfast broadband.
We are concerned because we can see from your website, and that of Connecting Devon and Somerset, that we seem to be more than 18 months away from a solution to our poor internet access.
Your website says that you are “exploring solutions” possibly by working in partnership with South Somerset or by delivering it as part of your commercial programme. This is not good enough. It feels to us that you are assessing where to install on the basis of population density rather than the educational and business needs of our community.
These needs should be placed ahead of people wanting to stream films.
We currently number 36 households (about 50 names), the village school, five businesses, and four farms which could be working much harder for UK plc if we had better access to the internet. We count to five every time a web page loads up, and there is no question of us using any video. This severely restricts our business and educational processes.
We would like superfast broadband installed sooner than you currently have planned in this area. We look forward to hearing from you how you plan to do this here in Horsington.
Yours sincerely,
(50+ signatures)