Superfast Broadband

BRINGING SUPERFAST BROADBAND TO OUR RURAL AREAS

Last year the Government announced that £530m was be made available for the provision of
superfast broadband (min 24Mbps) to 90% of properties in the UK and that a minimum speed of
2Mbps should be available to 100% of properties.

Project Update - March 2012

In this month's update:
- Local Broadband Plan is approved and the money is in place
- Events in your area come along to find out more
- Why we need you to complete our surveys
- Become a Local Broadband Champion

Local Broadband Plan is approved and the money is in place

Faster broadband for our villages and parishes has moved a step closer with the Government approval of our Local Broadband Plan and the agreement by the Local Authorities to match-fund the £4.07m that the Government has made available for Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire, giving £8.14m in total to be spent on direct delivery of improved infrastructure. By farthe largest slice of this money, just over £8m, will be spent in Warwickshire.

We are now working towards the procurement stage of the project where we will be going out to tender and this will probably take place in the late summer of this year, with a contractor to be appointed in December. The contractor will become a project partner and will also be expected to invest significant sums in the project, which it is why it is so important that we are able to show a high level of demand: those areas showing the greatest demand are likely to be prioritised over places where there is nodemand at all.

We are not specifying any particular technologies: simply that the solution must achieve our targets of 100% coverage at a minimum of 2Mbps and 90% at superfast speeds (over 24Mbps). As a rough guide, 2Mbps will allow you to watch BBC iPlayer without the 'wheel' going round or to
shop on-line, whereas 24Mbps allows you to use Skype to make video calls
and enables other services such as films on demand and the provision of telecare and telehealth.

Events in your area - come along to find out more

We will be holding events in each of the Boroughs/Districts throughout the project. The first events to help you to find out more about how superfast broadband are:

Tuesday 1st May 2012: Trinity Church, Coleshill Road, Atherstone from 7pm to 8:30pm

Wednesday 16th May 2012: Council Chamber, Elizabeth House, Stratford-Upon-Avon from 7pm to 8:30pm

Tuesday 22nd May 2012: Committee Room 2, Shire Hall, Warwick from 7pm to 8:30pm

Why we need you to complete our surveys

Our private sector partner will not be investing in our project out of the goodness of their heart - they will expect to see a return on their investment. We have prepared two surveys (one for businesses and one for residents) which ask the specific questions that providers will need
to have answered in order to make informed investment decisions - these are largely around how you would use the service and where you are located. If you have not already done so, please complete the broadband surveys that are located at www.cswbroadband.org.uk. If you run a business or workfrom home please complete both surveys - just because a building doesn't have a sign over the door doesn't mean that there is no business activity going on inside. Please encourage your neighbours to do the same, because the more people who respond from a given area, the higher priority it will receive! We recognise that if you have very poor broadband you may not be able to complete an on-line surveys so we are getting paper copies printed and these will be available from either your local Broadband Champion or your Parish Council - please see below.

In some areas people have already been asked to complete surveys for the local council or may have written letters of support. Whilst we will be given the data from those surveys they do not capture all of the information that is essential for this project, and so we would ask that you complete the project surveys as detailed above.

Become a Local Broadband Champion

We need to take this campaign right to the heart of our local communities and to do this we are recruiting local Broadband Champions. The role might include:

· Putting posters up on local notice boards

· Delivering flyers to households

· Providing hard copies of the surveys to those who are unable toaccess them on-line

· Delivering presentations to local groups about the project (but only if you feel comfortable with this!)

All materials will be provided and we are currently awaiting delivery of posters, flyers, postcards, questionnaires and other materials.

YOUR ASSISTANCE COULD MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE TO YOUR AREA GETTING SUPERFAST BROADBAND!!

To express an interest in becoming a Broadband Community Champion, please send your name, address (including postcode) and telephone number by emailto: broadband@warwickshire.gov.uk
For more information about being a Champion please visit:
http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/downloads-and-resources/for-community-champions/

How close can fibre get to your property?
A (usually) simple way to improve broadband speeds is to put fibre to the BT cabinet. This is a green box by the side of the road which provides telecoms to a village or group of properties. We need to map the exact locations of these boxes so that we can establish what benefits might be gained from this type of upgrade.
Please register the location of your BT cabinet and any others you may come across. You can do this at http://4sfb.crowdmap.com/ and there is also an App for iPhone or Android so that you can do it whilst you are out and about!

Downloads:
Super Fast Broadband Business Users (563KB PDF) | Super Fast Broadband Champions (271KB PDF) | Super Fast Broadband Personal Users (584KB PDF) | Help with PDFs

Contact us
Stockton Parish Council

74 George Street
Stockton
Southam
Warwickshire
Cv47 8JT

Clerk: Bill (Robbie) Robinson

tel: 01926 814094
info@stockton-warks-pc.gov.uk | | Further contacts

Copyright © 2012 Stockton Parish Council