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Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Dave (6th Mar 2019 - 12:16:15) Hi Does anyone know if there are plans for fibre optic broadband in the Conford area and if so which companies. Many thanks

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Ian (6th Mar 2019 - 13:18:12) homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/when-can-i-get-fibre highlights that is in the exploring solutions stage with openreach which is the worst status and translates as something between a very long time to never. If openreach don't provide it then that wipes out the vast majority of companies whom would sell you FTTC over the openreach system. This link also indicates Conford/Passfield is one of the dreaded "Exchange Only (EO) lines" google that and read the pain :( Conford might never get fibre.

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Big A (6th Mar 2019 - 13:54:56) When the new housing development goes ahead in Passfield hopefully they will put in Fibre

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - lac (6th Mar 2019 - 15:06:39) My experience with the fibre cabling of Cabinet 13 can only reinforce the previous pessimism. In spite of being only 1 mile from the exchange, it took Openreach two years longer than the rest of Liphook to put fibre to our cabinet. It took 18 months from them actually building the physical cabinet to providing fibre service. Openreach are almost completely useless. I would recommend trying a local initiative if you can stand the hassle. 5G may be your answer but it's some time away yet. Hampshire have some initiatives for rural schemes but my impression its "job done" as far as they are concerned. Lack of cash may also be used as an excuse. Good luck with your quest but patience will definitely be needed.

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Conford Resident (7th Mar 2019 - 21:03:18) Hi, Conford is currently having fibre infrastructure fitted. The openreach website whilst very useful normally is a less reliable source of information for rural areas. At this point in time, a new green cabinet has been fitted in September 2018. Fibre cabling currently exists along the B3004 and now needs to be run along the poles which come from the B3004 to the green cabinet located just past the school. After this it'll be up to openreach engineers to rewire the existing network to be structured off of the cabinet itself. Given current rate of progress, and the trajectory of organisation I would estimate that it'll take until the end of this year or beginning of next year to see fibre installed to the cabinet. Given Conford's (and indeed Liphook's) demographic makeup, it is not a high priority of BT Openreach planners to distribute fibre optic in this area given that very few people will benefit and indeed upgrade to it. I could go into extraordinary detail about the merits and shortcomings of this logic, but suffice it to say that Fibre is coming to conford, at a less than fibre optic pace

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Julian (11th Mar 2019 - 11:15:24) Hi all, I have been campaigning for faster / fiber broadband in Passfield, Conford, Standford and Headly areas for several years, ever since Hampshire County Council obtained £20M of economic funding for faster broadband from the UK Government. This was match funded by BT to £40M. Despite two business parks once employing over 500 people, our pleas were ignored. BTOpenreach are installing new fibre cables and cabinets ready to switch over to superfast. Once installed and connected (who knows when) the faster service should be available from the long list of providers including BT, Sky, TalkTalk, etc, etc. In the past few months I have been involved in an active campaign to take advantage of another UK Government grant scheme to provide £500 per residential property and £3000 for business towards the cost of full Fibre Broadband. With the kind assistance of two volunteers we have dropped leaflets to all homes and businesses within the with Passfield and Conford areas asking all residents and local businesses to register. So far we have 76 registrations out of a possible 400. This equates to £50,000 worth of funding but we can hopefully do much better than that! The more registrations, the more funding we can get and the sooner we can get fibre up and running. Please take the time to register your interest by sending your name, Post Code and landline telephone number by email to the following; GU30internet@smallworldit.com There is also a Facebook page here; facebook.com/groups/... Please ask your neighbours and friends to register too! We also need more volunteers to help with leaflet drops. Please email us if you have a couple of hours to help. Many thanks Julian.

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - john (11th Mar 2019 - 12:47:59) Hi Julian, presumably there would also be an initial fee paid by individuals not just a free grant/ gift?

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Julian (13th Mar 2019 - 11:04:31) Hi John, Its worth mentioning the two offerings; - Fibre to the Cabinet - FTTC - Fibre to the Premises - FTTP The grant scheme is intended to provide fibre all the way into the premises (FTTP) not just fibre to the cabinet then existing copper to the premises (FTTC). We currently benefit in that OpenReach are installing FTTC out of their own pockets (or rather the Governments) so the local scheme Should not have to pay for this again. If the FTTP grant still applies then BT OpenReach would need to provide the cost of extending the fibre from the cabinet (or nearest pole) directly into each property (replacing the old copper). Would £500 per property, or £3000 per business cover this? Hopefully. If there is a shortfall then there are several options; 1. Residents have the option to pay the difference themselves 2. We can apply for further funding through local, County and National schemes 3. We can fundraise. There are already hundreds of successful projects throughout the UK. A quick internet search for "rural broadband projects" brings up a wealth of info, including available funding schemes. The first step is to seek as many people to register as possible everyone to register. Julian

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Sam (13th Mar 2019 - 13:23:53) I am seeing a few concerning holes in the last statement Julian. FTTC is what “Joe Public” gets when they want fibre, i.e. if from BT it’s called Infinity etc. FTTC is fibre to the cabinet, the last leg to your house is copper, and it is terminated with a relatively cheap router £30-£50 often supplied for free by the ISP. FTTC is approx. £50 per month FTTP fibre to the premises is a whole different ball game, I know I have been part of the ordering of over a dozen of them and it’s typically for businesses due to cost and it offers an uncontended line with equal download/upload speeds. FTTP is not terminated with an off the shelf “Joe Public” router, everyone I have seen has both a fibre termination device and then a large Cisco router. FTTP is (cheapest I have seen of about a dozen I know) was £4000 per annum / £333 per month. FTTP is at least x6 x7 times the cost per month/year than FTTC. Whilst I accept you mention there are grants to cover the physical work of putting a fibre line into a property I have a feeling you’re missing the part in which FTTP is very expensive ongoing costs over FTTC. I can’t imagine businesses already paying upwards of 4k per year (And they paid for the install costs of the line) for FTTP are going to be happy that BT also offer FTTP to homes for 15% of that? I could be wrong but have you obtained the annual rental costs of FTTP that fall under the grant and installation offering you’re talking about?

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Julian (13th Mar 2019 - 15:21:45) Hi Sam, Many ISP's offer FTTP (Ultrafast) services for little or no more cost than you are currently paying for broadband. Its important to remember that expressing an interest in the grant scheme is not a commitment, its purely registration of interest to see if its financially viable and to ascertain costs. As you suggest, fibre for Business is an expensive solution and should not be compared with domestic offerings. - FTTC Services (Infinity and SuperFast) are standard broadband services that offer speeds up to 80Mb down and 20Mb up. - FTTP Services (referred to as Ultrafast) and can offer connection speeds of 160-330MB down and 30-50Mb up. As an example Zen Internet currently offer Ultrafast with 145Mbps down / 30Mbps up for £52.00 per month or 300Mbps down / 50Mbps up for £59.99, including line rental. There are also BT, Zen, Talk Talk and some other smaller providers. https://www.zen.co.uk/home/broadband/ultrafast-fibre Replacing copper with fibre directly into the home does not usually increase the cost of broadband service. Its just a new means of serving the property with modern standards. Users can still choose their own broadband supplier and they should not have to change their current package or provider unless they want to go faster. It's worth mentioning that copper is an old medium and costs BT Openreach millions each year in maintenance. Most faults (noise on the line, slow broadband, etc) can be attributed to ageing copper, bad joints, etc. Installing new fibre should present considerable future savings to OpenReach. The idea behind the grant scheme is purely to replace the copper with fibre, giving home users the option to go up to 1000Mbps (1GB) in the future should they want to. I also recall reading that the value of homes in FTTP serviced areas can increase by several thousand pounds! Regards Julian.

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - John (14th Mar 2019 - 11:18:18) Hi Julian, your reply was very technical. Your initial posting inferred that everyone would get a grant towards it yes but that implies someone to match those grants. It would be clearer for people if you clarified the cost to them. Eg if 500 people sign up you will pay so much etc.

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Julian (18th Mar 2019 - 18:10:12) Hi John, Every residential property & business can benfit from the scheme with a voucher as part of a community project. My self-inflicted role is to gather the details of anyone interested (Post Code and Telephone Number) and submit them to BT OpenReach. BT Openreach then scope the project along with costs and then present this to the community at a local meeting with question and answer sessions. This is no commitment at this stage, it is purely a registration of interest to find out more detail. More detail is available on the UK Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport web site here; https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/ ... "Gigabit vouchers can be used by small businesses and the local communities surrounding them to contribute to the installation cost of a gigabit-capable connection. Businesses can claim up to £2,500 (was £3,000) against the cost of connection either individually or as part of a group project. Residents can benefit from the scheme with a voucher worth £500 as part of a group project." ... I hope that helps. Julian

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Simon (18th Mar 2019 - 21:45:05) You probably will have more hope setting up your own local wireless ISP.. depending on what the landscape is like you could start small then scale it up as more people sign up.. Just need some location which can get a good speed to share it out to other..

Re: Fibre Optic Broadband in Conford - Julian (19th Mar 2019 - 17:04:25) Hi Simon, Unfortunately the landscape is not the best for wireless; no high-points, fairly level and lots of big trees. Wi-Fi was tried and tested in 2014. Regards, Julian.

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