The Ewhurst and Surrey Hills Broadband (ESHB) campaign, which was recently promised a grant worth £150,000 by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) to help improve the areas broadband service, has accused BT of conspiring to have its project "crushed".

SEEDA initially granted the money to ESHB's campaign, which has been running since 2007, on 14th January 2011 and the final contract was due to be signed in February 2011. However, shortly before any signature could happen, SEEDA made the unexpected decision to withhold the grant until another announcement occurred that could "affect the outcome".

Supporters of the ESHB scheme believe that BT, which allegedly failed to provide a valid quotation during the tender process, has now told SEEDA and the Surrey County Council that it will be upgrading Cranleigh and Ewhurst with 'up to' 40Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet ( FTTC ) technology and therefore there is no need for the grant to be paid.


Indeed BT attempted to do something similar in the small rural village of Erbistock (Wrexham, Wales) last year, when it unexpectedly moved to undercut Rutland Telecom's (RT) £50k bid to install superfast broadband in the area (here). However, residents ultimately picked RT's solution because BT could only promise a moderate improvement to existing service quality.

The BT solution (FTTC) being proposed for Cranleigh and Ewhurst is far more capable, though the ESHB campaign has doubts about its ability to deliver. A particular challenge for Ewhurst results from the long lines from the cabinet to the homes of those living in the Surrey Hills, which BT acknowledge are of poor broadband quality. It's likely that these will still experience "extremely slow broadband speed[s]", even under FTTC.

To meet this challenge, the Ewhurst group wanted to use the promised grant for a fully flexible enhanced solution from its chosen contractor, Vtesse Networks ( Vtesse Broadband ). This would have included techniques to improve the very poor lines and the installation of some true Fibre-to-the-Premises ( FTTP ).


The campaign also claims that BT confirmed in writing last March that it had no such plans for the area. Meanwhile BT has yet to make an official announcement about its plans, although a recent article in Get Surrey appeared to all but confirm an upgrade by March 2012.

It's understood from ESHB that the BT announcement itself was due last week, but never materialised, and is now anticipated next week "adding two more months delay". However, when we asked, BT chose not to be drawn into commenting on the wider issues at play.


The ESHB campaign fears that SEEDA may be convinced by BT to announce their decision without any technical comparison or means of monitoring BT's potentially undefined offer in an undefined timescale.

In related news the Government announced last year that all RDAs, including SEEDA, would close by April 2012.