Broadband provision is now top of the agenda for communities largely due to Covid19. The need to work from home and children accessing schooling online has shown up the deficit that still exists in provision in rural areas. The question is -what is being done about it?
A Bit of History
Some might remember the BT Race to Infinity campaign that took place from October to December 2010. At the time, BT had no plans to upgrade rural exchanges due to the prohibitive costs entailed – or so it said. It then offered up an opportunity to all rural exchanges in the UK to enter a competition to win an exchange upgrade to fibre broadband.
Madingley Exchange or EAMAD is the name of the exchange that serves Caldecote, Hardwick, Coton, Madingley, Childerley, Dry Drayton (south) itself, and is located on Cambridge Road, Hardwick. I gathered together a group of volunteers from the first four communities, and we trudged through all the villages in the coldest winter I can remember, knocking on doors, speaking to residents and collecting signatures from all the households, so we could win this upgrade.
And we won. When the announcement was made on Jan 2011, we were one of six exchanges in the country that completed the assignment to sign up every premises on the exchange. The second Cambridgeshire exchange to win was Caxton, which covers Bourn, Caxton and Cambourne. I think BT were rather surprised, expecting perhaps just one to win. We were promised that all the premises on the exchange would be connected to fibre broadband.
BT subsequently went on to win contract from BDUK and funds to provide broadband to rural exchanges in Cambridgeshire through the Connecting Cambridgeshire program.
What is the situation now?
BT reneged on its promise of full connectivity to premises on each of the winning exchanges. Not only that it took the next 3-4 years till 2014 and a lot of chasing from me to get the connections we now have.
Highfields Caldecote was covered by Fibre To The Premises (FTTP), Hardwick by a combination of Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) and FTTP, Coton by FTTC and Madingley by FTTP. To complicate matters Old Caldecote and Kingston were on the Comberton exchange so did not benefit from the upgrade.
So there are parts of Hardwick, Coton and Madingley still without fibre broadband. This site shows the suppliers now available on the exchange though it is showing it in the wrong place. Bourn has suffered the same situation as not all of it is covered by fibre broadband.
Old Caldecote and Kingston have been upgraded through the Connecting Cambridgeshire project. But there are still parts of the Ward like Longstowe and Little Gransden that are suffering slow broadband speeds. These villages are part of the (apparently) “hard to reach”areas.
In recognition of the need for full connectivity, the government has provided more funding for broadband upgrades.
What should you do?
If you are one of those affected by slow broadband speeds, I will encourage you to check out the available schemes though Connecting Cambridgeshire. As with most things in life, there is a value and a time limit to these schemes.
Those communities that are suffering from low broadband speeds (less than 30 Mbps) can still take advantage of the Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme https://www.connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk/funding-schemes/rural-gigabit-voucher-scheme/.
The Voucher is worth up to £3500 for small businesses and £1500 for residential premises. It remains open till 31 March 2021 or until the funds run out. The funds can then be used to commission service from suppliers such a BT or others.
Also Connecting Cambridgeshire has secured £500,000 extra “top-up” funding from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority to provide an additional “top-up” of £1,500 per premise.
Good luck, and if I can help in any way, please contact me.