Internet Connection for Village Hall

[Rob9000]

Looking for some advice please!

Our village is served by a combination of FTTC and FTTP both over poles. I'm on the village hall committee (for my sins!). The village hall does not have an internet connection and a decision has been made to get the hall connected. (It's next to a house which is served by FTTC on a pole).
How do I go about requesting an internet connection?
The hall does not have a postal address so i'm thinking it would be tricky to just phone up BT and request one that way?

Many thanks for any pointers!

 

[Meatball]

You can check whether the Village Hall address is available by simply going to the BT.com site. BT still have a telephony obligation and may wave the connection fee if ordering FTTC. However you will need to secure access to the phone line and router so that any telephone charges do not impact the cost to the committee and security of the network. Once you have your first contract you can then swap to another ISP.

As a committee you may be regarded as a business. BT provide business Guest WIFI solutions which may address some of the public access issues.

This pdf published in Cumbria may be of use at it highlights the various issues http://www.cumbria.gov.uk/eLibrary/view.asp?ID=90417

However before embarking check that there are not other network providers in or likely to provide network in your village. Some have special arrangements for village halls etc. Your local authority may also have public WIFI initiatives.

I am assuming this is to provide basic WIFI access etc to support the use of the hall which for a considerable part will not be in use. If the use is moderate and the 4G signal at the hall's location is good (with external attenna) then Mobile broadband may be cheaper/practical.

 

[Rob9000]

You can check whether the Village Hall address is available by simply going to the BT.com site. BT still have a telephony obligation and may wave the connection fee if ordering FTTC. However you will need to secure access to the phone line and router so that any telephone charges do not impact the cost to the committee and security of the network. Once you have your first contract you can then swap to another ISP.

As a committee you may be regarded as a business. BT provide business Guest WIFI solutions which may address some of the public access issues.

This pdf published in Cumbria may be of use at it highlights the various issues http://www.cumbria.gov.uk/eLibrary/view.asp?ID=90417

However before embarking check that there are not other network providers in or likely to provide network in your village. Some have special arrangements for village halls etc. Your local authority may also have public WIFI initiatives.

I am assuming this is to provide basic WIFI access etc to support the use of the hall which for a considerable part will not be in use. If the use is moderate and the 4G signal at the hall's location is good (with external attenna) then Mobile broadband may be cheaper/practical.

Thank you!

 

[Freeola]

Any ISP supplying Openreach line rental would be able to get a line installed for you. If the address doesn't exist in the Openreach/BT systems then they can simply add it as a new address, it then goes through validation and planning, which can delay installation sometimes. We do a 'line only' product that only allows incoming calls and outgoing freephone and emergency calls primarily just to allow a broadband service on top.

On a person note, I'm also on a village hall committee and I installed Ubiquiti PoE kit for WiFi access. Separate VLAN's, guest portal, rate limiting etc, sorted!