A NEW group, Broadband 4 Rural Crediton, was established following a meeting held at Black Dog on January 20.

There was an impressive turnout of more than 80 people at the meeting on one of the coldest nights of the year which organiser, Mid Devon District Councillor Judi Binks, said: “…showed the desire of local community to be properly informed and consulted by BT and Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) as they spend our money on rolling out faster broadband to rural areas.”

However, Mrs Binks added that the evening raised more questions than answers!

She explained: “We were hoping for facts – not flummery!

“Matt Barrow of CDS and Laurent Boon of BT explained that Phase One will not now be completed until the end of this year. Phase Two cannot start until the current tendering process is completed and the contract with the chosen provider is unlikely to be finalised until June, 2016.

“People were keen to establish how they fitted in to this process and were told that everyone who was not connected in Phase One would automatically be put into the Phase Two programme. In addition, those people from Phase One whose speeds failed to reach 24 Mbps would also be included in Phase Two.

“Owing to the shroud of secrecy surrounding the tendering process, BT and CDS were unable to give specific answers as to which properties would be included because of the restraint of top speeds dropping off rapidly more than 1.2km from the cabinet.

“Several people asked why couldn’t fibre be strung from the cabinets by way of the existing overhead telephone cables network, which is apparently happening from the Cheriton Fitzpaine cabinet through the lanes for 6km to Kennerleigh?

“No definitive answer was given, but this looks like a viable and an alternative solution to digging pipes and laying cables underground. Let’s hope they give more consideration to rolling this method out to Woolsery, Black Dog and Puddington, at least.”

Mrs Binks said that Mike Brett gave a fascinating insight into the rural Lancashire model of communities rolling out the optical fibre themselves to every household with speeds of 1,000Mpbs and that Al Sutter used mapping techniques to show the possible network of connectivity.

She continued: “Mel Stride wanted to attend and his PA, Mike Knuckey, drove a round trip from London in one day to listen to views and on his return, Mel wrote a letter to the head of CDS, urging them to make the objective of finding community solutions for the most Hard to Reach areas their first priority in their negotiations with BT and any future contractors.

“Cllr Margaret Squires reiterated her support at county level for the campaign.”

Mrs Binks said that as a result of the meeting, a group has been formed called Broadband for Rural Crediton and the website is: http://www.b4rc.org .

She encouraged people to visit the website, designed by Mike Brett and read about the community-led options and study the actual connectivity on maps based on the recent survey produced by Al Sutter and Mike Brett.

“Both Mike and Al are happy to provide copies of their presentations and details of their research to those residents seriously interested in community solutions: contact either: [email protected] or: [email protected] who will respond to your queries.

“If you want to join our mailing list, contact: [email protected] for further updates and meetings about community-led broadband.”

Judi Binks would like to thank the speakers, Black Dog Memorial Hall Committee and everyone for coming and she will be sending out details of a meeting soon specifically covering Community Broadband Solutions for local rural areas.

Alan Quick