Colton Superfast Broadband Why it's important and how we can get it......Mike Postle (mike@mpo1.uk)

All about the Timing

Aug 6, 2015

There are a couple of cabinets already live in the Newby Bridge area on the southern flank of our Parish. All the others serving our Parish are officially due to go live sometime in Spring 2016 – so some more slippage here. The big driver of schedules at the moment is the need to draw down as much EU funding as possible by September and so projects which can be funded in this way are currently being prioritised.

 

Looking around for good news……. During this time, there may be some additional work done beyond that currently planned for phase 1 as there is an underspend in the budget and additional money has been brought forward because of the projected take-up of SFBB in Cumbria.  

Phase 1 – AT LAST!! Detailed maps now available

Aug 6, 2015
Connecting Cumbria and BT have now released a detailed interactive map of which areas are going to get improved speeds as a result of the public investment in phase 1 of the Connecting Cumbria project. It can be found on www.connectingcumbria.org.uk/when-and-where

 

The map shows a series of concentric (sometimes overlapping) circles centred on those cabinets which are connected by fibre to the enabled exchanges. The signal is then carried from the cabinet to homes and businesses through the old copper wire system – and this is where the signal (and hence speeds) degrades.

 

Those of you within the inner circles (roughly a mile radius from the cabinet) can expect to get superfast broadband (above 24 Mb/s). The speed will then fall off from there so that at the boundaries of the second circles, there will be no improvement over what you have now.   

 

I’ll be commenting on the implications for our Parish in what will probably be a spate of blogs coming up………….

 

A little white dish on the Church flagpole & very high speed Broadband

Apr 28, 2015

DSC00784

 

A sunny Saturday afternoon saw a steady stream of people bringing smart phones and tablets to Colton Church Hall, connecting up to the demonstration Wi-Fi link and experiencing speeds of the order of 40 Mb/s both up and downstream. Also showing was a continuous streaming from the BBC iPlayer and a demonstration of videoconferencing. Oh the joys of high definition pictures, no delays and virtually no buffering! At one stage, there were 17 people all connected with no noticeable decrease in speeds.

 

The demonstration, courtesy of WMY Systems Ltd, certainly showed that the technology – which relied on radio links and fed back into the B4RN network across Morecambe Bay - worked well and has the potential to be a cost effective solution to bringing Superfast (or even ultrafast) Broadband to rural areas such as ours.

 

Interest was expressed at keeping up to date with developments of the system: I’ll keep you up to speed through this blog. Apart from the technological aspect of the afternoon, it was good to see folks meeting together on a sunny Saturday afternoon – something to be repeated I think.

Superfast Colton - A reminder

Apr 17, 2015
Colton school is now a (temporary) WiFi point. It’s been connected up to the ultra fast B4RN network across Morecambe Bay and relayed by radio link to the school room in preparation for tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon’s demonstration (From 2 until 5 pm). A few minutes ago we were getting 40 mb/s up and down stream via WiFi to a smart phone – which is about as fast as the phone and WiFi will handle.
 
Bring your lap top, phone or tablet tomorrow afternoon and find out what you can do with this sort of speed.  

100 times the speed – Come and check it out!

Apr 2, 2015

Regular readers of this blog will know that phase 1 of the Connecting Cumbria project is beginning to make inroads into our area bringing fibre to the nearest cabinet and letting the existing copper wires take fast (hopefully superfast – 24 Mb/s or above) broadband to our premises. Not everyone will get the service this way and phase 2 is looking to other commercial suppliers and other technologies – notably radio technologies - to fill in the gaps.

 

We have an opportunity to check out this new radio technology with Ted Walsh of WMY Systems Ltd on Saturday afternoon April 18th (2 till 5 pm) at Colton Church Hall. There will be a WiFi signal which should deliver round about 130 Mb/s – 100 times the speed I often get. So bring your smart phone, iPad or lap top any time during the afternoon and find out what you can do with this sort of speed. It’s an ideal opportunity to get together, have a chat and explore what the new technology will allow us to do. Hope to see you there.   

 

Please let your friends know about this opportunity – the more the merrier!

Super fast Bouth - Soon

Mar 30, 2015
Bouth properties are currently connected via an ‘exchange only’ line, meaning that the lines go straight to the exchange and not via a cabinet. This type of connection has posed some issues for BT which have now largely been overcome.
 
The latest information is that Bouth will be served by three new cabinets – one becoming live early Summer 2015 with the other two planned for the end of 2015. We are currently unable to say which properties will be connected to which cabinet but I’ll relay this news as soon as it becomes available. 

It's Live!

Mar 30, 2015
Newby Bridge (Cabinet 4) is the first SFBB connection to be made in our Parish – Connecting Cumbria has just informed me that it’s now live!
 
Getting SFBB is not automatic though: you need to contact your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and see if they offer the service. Not all ISPs will, so you may have to change ISPs to get it. Will it cost more? Obviously depends what you are paying now but probably ‘yes’. In my book though it will be well worth it.
 
If you do change to SFBB, please drop me an e-mail with any observations you may have (mike@postle.co).

No Phase 2 for our area?

Mar 17, 2015

It’s just as well that phase 1 looks as if it will deliver for our area because it’s unlikely that phase 2 will. The £5.7m of public phase 2 money can only be spent where there is a ‘market failure’.

 

Recent consultations with potential providers (including with BT) seem to indicate that over the next two to three years, these commercial providers will cover many of the areas left out by phase 1: hence no public money here.  Which leaves about 8,500 premises in Allerdale, Copeland and some remoter parts of the Lake District seemingly eligible for the funding.

 

So just who are these potential commercial providers? They are for the most part relatively small and rely on radio technology: a technology which has recently made great strides to becoming a real rival to the fibre to cabinet solutions currently being progressed.   

 

Whether or not these providers have the capacity to fill the gaps on a commercial basis is the subject of an assessment process being undertaken before the plans for phase 2 are finalised by June.

 

Some Slippage but it’s Good News

Mar 17, 2015
Those of you who have been keeping an eye on the roll out of SFBB via the Connecting Cumbria web site (www.connectingcumbria.org.uk/when-and-where) will have noticed that there is some slippage in the time scales and that the exchange map is not up to date. I rather feared that this would mean that the connections we thought we were getting under phase 1 of the project wouldn’t materialise.

 

Not so! For I’ve been given more up to date information by Connecting Cumbria which indicates better than planned coverage will be achieved before the end of the project:  

 

LA12 8HF & Oxen Park

Greenodd cabinet 1

Early Summer 2015

Newby Bridge exchange

8 cabs planned

5 planned for Early Summer 2015, 3 planned for early Winter 2015

Greenodd exchange

4 cabs planned

2 planned for Early Summer 2015, 2 planned for early Winter 2015

Satterthwaite exchange

1 cab planned

Early Summer 2015

Torver

Coniston cabinet 1

Early Summer 2015

Lowick Bridge exchange

2 cabs planned

2 planned for Early Winter 2015

 

(Torver & Lowick Bridge were potentially two ‘not spots’  - the latter would have implications for connections to the Nibthwaite area of our parish).

 

The Connecting Cumbria project overall is hitting its targets with some 67% of the County’s premises now able to get SFBB via either BT’s commercial roll-out or the Connecting Cumbria project.

Phase 2 – Some more developments & some more accurate (?) Maps.

Dec 8, 2014

The County Council has started a consultation on where this extra money should be spent.

 

Regular followers of this blog will know that what has now become known as phase 1 of the Connecting Cumbria project (plus the BT commercial roll-out) is on track to reach its target of 93% of premises covered by Superfast Broad Band (SFBB) by the end of 2015.

 

Phase 2 is designed to extend SFBB to give an additional 2% coverage by 2017 funded by a £5.72m package. As part of the preparation for phase 2, the Council has mapped out what it thinks is the likely outcome of phase 1 and from this, defined what it sees as intervention areas for phase 2.

 

The consultation document and maps can be found from the links at the bottom of the web page  http://www.opinionsuite.com/cumbria/cumbria-county-council/chief-executives-office/connecting-cumbria-phase-2-consultation/consult_view . The extra detail maps, in particular make interesting reading as they give a snapshot of where things are thought to end up at the end of next year.

 

The NGA maps relate to SFBB (but see comment below) and the white & ‘conditional white’ areas are areas which are unlikely to have SFBB by the end of 2015 and are considered as intervention areas for phase 2. There is some confusion as to exactly what the maps show as the speed threshold for phase 2 is being lowered from 24 Mb/s to 15 Mb/s – Do the maps take this decision into account when defining intervention areas?

 

The BB maps relate to the basic 2Mb/s service – which is meant to be guaranteed to all premises by the end of 2015.

 

The priority for phase 2 spending is given as targeting NGA interventions to use available public funds to provide a ‘step change’  in BB capability of premises getting relatively slow BB speeds (less than 15 Mb/s) rather than for obtaining marginal increases in speed for premises already getting 15 Mb/s and above.

 

The consultation, which has the usual impossibly tight deadline of 9th January, is to ‘give an opportunity for the general public to register opinions re the state aid proposals and the proposed targeted areas.

 

Let me know what you think. I’ll try to get the local Broadband Champions together and we’ll get any comments fed into the process. Incidentally, although the maps are a huge improvement on all that has gone before, they are no substitute for postcode data –we’re still working on that one…..

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