April 2022 Better Broadband Update

Lockerley4 – Newtown Square Area. Infrastructure on this scheme is underway but not yet complete. If you are part of this scheme you should be getting updates from your scheme co-ordinator Kevin. As of mid February Openreach were estimating the scheme should be up and running by the end of April 2022.

Lockerley4 – The Prophets/Newtown road area. We had a quote for FTTP BUT cannot manage to get Openreach to progress it forwards. I am just crossing my fingers that as this area is between two existing schemes Openreach might have built in capacity to serve this area too – will have to wait and see when Newtown Square scheme goes live.

WW3 – The Frenches and perhaps other areas – another volunteer has stepped forwards to request a new quote for ww3 properties who get by far the worst speeds in our locality. We are still waiting for the new quote to come back….

WW5 (Mill Lane) – this scheme has stalled due to scale and costs, happy to support anyone who would like to step up and lead the project for this area.

Other options – for those with good mobile 4G coverage than it is now affordable to have a 4G hub that gives MUCH better speeds than some properties are able to get with a standard broadband connection

LANDLINES & VOIP – the government is trying to get all properties that still use a landline to move to a digital fibre landline telephone service that is provided via their broadband connection and thereby remove the copper telephone line system, by 2025. I have raised some concerns about this with our provider as mobile signal is poor/non-existent within some village properties and power cuts are not that infrequent, which means that in an emergency householders are unable to make emergency service calls. Unlike the copper telephone service a VOIP service requires a working broadband connection. Many properties on Lockerley 4 exchange that have FTTP will have or will about to be moved over to the VOIP service.

Even if you do not currently have a broadband connection at some point soon you will have your landline telephone service changed to VOIP – details are unclear at the moment but you are welcome to contact me for advice if needed. I note other villages have raised similar concerns.

Ursula, broadband@sherfieldenglish.org.uk

WW5 Cabinet update from David

As a result of the rule change (whole cabinets only to be considered for

upgrade to Fibre To The Property (FTTP) in rural areas) and the need to achieve 80 of 130 (alleged) addresses for a minimum 12 month FTTP

contract I have decided not to pursue this further. There are not 130

connectable addresses (see last month’s piece) and many of our residents will not be willing (or need) to embark onto new FTTP contracts, which is

wholly understandable. I am willing to pass on the information I have

collected to anyone who would like to pick up the baton, but I cannot devote

the vast amount of time required to achieve the goal. David Griffiths

WW5 FTTP Update from David

Unfortunately progress is very slow. Openreach sent details of 130 properties

served by Wellow 5. However, further analysis showed that 33 of those addresses contributing to the minimum of 80 required to raise the £230,000

were actually empty. These were lock-ups, storage units, an automated

chicken farm, sewage works at Eastwood(!) etc. in Wellow, Shorts Farm, Plaitford and Sherfield English and also included St. Leonard’s Church!!

Openreach have just advised that they are willing to look again at the properties, but have now changed their policy to bidding for FTTP for whole cabinets only and smaller group bids (as were successful in Newtown) are a

thing of the past. Also, if 80 addresses agree to sign up for the voucher scheme, they must sign up for a minimum 12 month contract to a

broadband supplier of their choice. Will everyone wish to do that? Update next month if Openreach reply to my email by then!!