By: MarkJ - 12 January, 2012 (9:48 AM) - Score: 1504 - Fixed Line Broadband
The controversial Bath & North East Somerset Council (BNESC), which last year rejected £670,000 in UK government funding (here) to boost the regions superfast broadband coverage before being forced to reconsider (here), have now finally agreed to a new joint plan that will see £2.724 million being invested in the local internet infrastructure.According to This is Bath, BNESC will now only contribute £475,000 to the overall cost; this was originally £1m and thus deemed too expensive. The rest will come from Europe (ERDF), the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office and be match-funded via the private sector.
Councillor Cherry Beath explained:
"The cabinet recognises how important that broadband access is for communities and creating the business environment to create jobs with economic prosperity. We have thoroughly investigated all the options to improve broadband access and listened to the views of local people, particularly in rural areas where around 40,000 people live in areas susceptible to low internet speeds.
Through the cabinet deciding to join the Connecting Devon and Somerset bid, every £1 will secure £4.70 and see a much greater number of homes and businesses accessing broadband."
"The cabinet recognises how important that broadband access is for communities and creating the business environment to create jobs with economic prosperity. We have thoroughly investigated all the options to improve broadband access and listened to the views of local people, particularly in rural areas where around 40,000 people live in areas susceptible to low internet speeds.
Through the cabinet deciding to join the Connecting Devon and Somerset bid, every £1 will secure £4.70 and see a much greater number of homes and businesses accessing broadband."
However the joint bid, which will be presented alongside Somerset County Council, Devon County Council, North Somerset Council, Plymouth County Council and Torbay Council, does not appear to be terribly ambitious and is below BDUK's own national UK target.
The government's BDUK office aims for 90% of "people in each local authority area" to gain access to a superfast (25Mbps+) broadband service by 2015 (the last 10% will have to make do with a minimum of 2Mbps).
By comparison BNESC's scheme apparently envisages "superfast speeds of 20MB/s" (we expect the newspaper meant Mbps [Megabits] and NOT MBps [MegaBytes]) becoming available to 85% of "places" by 2015. One reason for BDUK and Ofcom's choice of 24Mbps+ is because it would rule out cheating via existing and unreliable 'up to' 24Mbps ADSL2+ technology.
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Comments: 5
DeductionPosted: 12 January, 2012 - 12:53 PM
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So does this mean they can effectively just roll out ADSL2+ with all that tax payer cash........ Disgusting!
ElijahgPosted: 13 January, 2012 - 12:12 AM
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@Deduction, ADSL2 is 24mbps maximum, and doesn't really cover rural areas. You only get 24mbps when you're pretty much next door to the exchange. The money is to provide 25mbps+ connections, like fibre.
The linked article says BANES were "Not bending to public pressure", which just confirms that they don't listen to a word the public say, and blunder ahead with whatever they think will best benefit their own pockets.
If they hadn't spent £900,000 on a ridiculous bus lane at Odd Down (which benefits no-one, and causes huge problems with cars and busses having to swap into each other's lanes), they could have easily afforded the broadband scheme, which benefits pretty much everyone.
DTMarkPosted: 13 January, 2012 - 2:36 AM
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Surely it doesn't make a great deal of difference dropping the target to 20Mbps. It's still going to need a combination of FTTC and FTTP to achieve those speeds at the given target coverage percentages.
Unless, of course, they have fallen for the "up to" con. In which case, they need do little or nothing, because most can already get that from cable (if it has it), 3G and ADSL. So, no need to spend any money at all, everything is already done.
Very odd.
DeductionPosted: 13 January, 2012 - 5:01 AM
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quote"@Deduction, ADSL2 is 24mbps maximum, and doesn't really cover rural areas. You only get 24mbps when you're pretty much next door to the exchange. The money is to provide 25mbps+ connections, like fibre."
NOPE read the story again. Particularly the last paragraph, this area intends 20Mb speed (ADSL2+ like rates), not 25+Mb speeds which is what is faster than ADSL2+. It specifically does not say FASTER than. Its only the BDUK that indeed 25+Mbs for all (or rather 90+%).
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