Home
 » ISP News » 
Sponsored Links

South Yorkshire UK Digital Region Network Sets August 2014 Closure Date

Tuesday, Feb 18th, 2014 (9:45 am) - Score 1,576
digital-region-south-yorkshire-uk

The controversial tax payer fuelled £100m+ Digital Region superfast broadband network in South Yorkshire (England), which surprised nobody when it finally collapsed last year under a pile of its own debt and a lack of political support (here), has finally set a closure date of 15th August 2014.

The network was originally setup as an alternative to BT’s slower local ADSL infrastructure but it suffered due to poor advertising, an inability to attract any big name (mainstream) ISPs and the fact that BT later added faster / similar broadband connectivity into some of the same areas.

In the end Digital Region’s network managed to reach 80% of premises in the region but it only attracted 3,000 subscribers, which fell well below the 100,000 needed in order to make the project sustainable. As a result the projects backers (Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield councils) all agreed that the only solution was a “managed closedown of the network“ and to migrate existing customers over to an alternative platform.

Today one of the networks ISPs, Chess Telecom (aka – LittleBigOne), has issued a new statement to confirm that their official Termination Date has been set for 15th May 2014. The good news is that it will continue to provide a service for a period of three months after this date until the full closure.

Chess Telecom Statement

As you will no doubt be aware, following the announcement made on 15th August 2013 the decision has been made to close the Digital Region Network. The closure date is set as 15th May 2014 and the DRL will continue to provide your services for a period of three months following the Termination Date.

As a Chess customer you’re in great hands, and can take advantage of our unparalleled product set at the very best possible prices, all backed by award winning customer service and our never beaten on price guarantee.

Our broadband experts will be calling shortly to make sure you’re on the best possible package and to make sure your business is not impacted by the network closure.

Given that Network operations are due to cease, no new connections, changes or reconnections can be accepted during the notice period.

If you have any immediate questions please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team on 0844 770 6060

One extra bit of good news is that the Government are currently proposing a new £10 million scheme under their Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme (here), which would work to help deploy superfast broadband (FTTC/P) services across 90% of South Yorkshire (most likely with BT’s help). But the local authorities remain reluctant to sign off on that plan until they can sell what remains of DRL (GEO Networks and a few others are believed to have been sniffing around).

In the meantime DRL’s remaining customers have been left to battle over the complex issue of migration between DRL’s Sub-Loop Unbundled (SLU) network and that of either BT’s platform, Virgin Media’s cable network or one of the other fully/shared unbundled (LLU) ISPs like Sky Broadband or TalkTalk.

Sadly each path has a different process and some, such as a move to Virgin’s cable network, require the customer to effectively setup a new line. Meanwhile it’s not currently possible to use a MAC when going from DRL’s VDSL/FTTC service to an FTTC ISP on Openreach’s network, which means that an easier path might be to downgrade on to an ADSL2+ ISP (ideally one with a short contract term) and then upgrade to FTTC later.

Alternatively you could just cancel the old service and ask for a new line to be installed, which can be a bit tedious. Sadly in areas that don’t have an alternative FTTC or cable provider then the only option remains a slower ADSL based connection.

Last month Ask4 hinted that they were communicating with DRL and supplier Thales in the hope of expanding the situations where a seamless Migration Authorisation Code (MAC) switch could work. Ask4 advised that customers could already use this when switching to the BTInfinity (FTTC) package but it’s not clear whether that process has now been expanded to include other situations and we are waiting to hear back on that.

Share with Twitter
Share with Linkedin
Share with Facebook
Share with Reddit
Share with Pinterest
Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
Search ISP News
Search ISP Listings
Search ISP Reviews

Comments are closed

Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £24.00
132Mbps
Gift: None
Shell Energy UK ISP Logo
Shell Energy £26.99
109Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £27.99
145Mbps
Gift: None
Zen Internet UK ISP Logo
Zen Internet £28.00 - 35.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £15.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
YouFibre UK ISP Logo
YouFibre £19.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
BeFibre UK ISP Logo
BeFibre £21.00
150Mbps
Gift: £25 Love2Shop Card
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (5473)
  2. BT (3505)
  3. Politics (2525)
  4. Openreach (2291)
  5. Business (2251)
  6. Building Digital UK (2234)
  7. FTTC (2041)
  8. Mobile Broadband (1961)
  9. Statistics (1780)
  10. 4G (1654)
  11. Virgin Media (1608)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1451)
  13. Fibre Optic (1392)
  14. Wireless Internet (1386)
  15. FTTH (1381)

Helpful ISP Guides and Tips

Promotion
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms , Privacy and Cookie Policy , Links , Website Rules , Contact
Mastodon