THE community group “Broadband for Rural Crediton” (B4RC, website: www.b4rc.org) has been campaigning for some months to bring high quality, future-proof broadband to the more remote areas of Mid Devon.

It has explored the possibilities for the community itself to build a fibre-to-the-home system, but for various reasons that has proved not to be possible.

In the meantime, the government scheme for rural broadband still continues, and indeed here in Devon and Somerset is about to embark on a “Phase 2”.

The situation is complex, technically, politically and financially, and what this new phase will actually bring to real people living outside villages and towns remains somewhat uncertain at this point.

However, recently another new development has provided a bright new possibility for all of us presently suffering from inadequate broadband connections.

The commercial company Gigaclear (which installs fibre-to-the-home) recently sourced a significant amount of private funding, and has subsequently announced further extensions to its existing activities.

This company has a proven track record and provides just the sort of future-proofed, easily-updated, symmetric and competitively priced service provision that B4RC was originally aiming at.

Crucially, Gigaclear’s connections (entirely and completely separated from BT) do not differ according to where you live; they are all equally fast (and both for upload and download).

The Broadband for Rural Crediton would recommend that everyone in rural Mid Devon with concerns about their present or future broadband needs should register their possible interest with Gigaclear; this can be done without commitment at: http://www.gigaclear.com/postcode-checker/ .

Registrations in large numbers across Mid Devon will send a clear message to both Gigaclear and “Connecting Devon and Somerset” (CDS, the agency implementing the government scheme in our area) that we want more for our money than the clumsy, antiquated, unreliable, asymmetric and non-updatable offerings provided by BT (and those other providers who ultimately rely on BT/Openreach to deliver their services).

Readers may be aware of a £500 Voucher scheme being run by CDS, aimed at people with immediate need and who cannot wait any longer to improve their internet connections.

The appearance of Gigaclear as a possible player strengthens B4RC’s view that all eligible households, those with a download speed of less than 2 Mbps, should apply for a voucher immediately, even if they don’t intend to use it personally or immediately. (Vouchers can be aggregated by groups of individuals or communities and do not have to be used straight away. They could for example be set against any costs of bringing improved services to everyone in that area, hopefully via Gigaclear).

Information on the voucher scheme can be found at: https://www.connectingdevonandsomerset.co.uk/broadbandvoucherscheme/ and on the B4RC website: http://www.b4rc.org where we encourage your readers to take the online survey.

Cllr Judi Binks

Sandford and Creedy

Mid Devon District Council

Mike Brett - B4RC

Alasdair Sutter - B4RC

Walter Willcox -B4RC