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Broadband for Great Bromley
UPDATE February 2012
From the magazine, by Leonie Henderson
Speed is not the word I would use to describe broadband round here - ours is less than 0.2 mbs -
and there are still some homes with no broadband at all.
With a view to improving speeds Neil Skinner has been working hard for months with the result
that County Broadband are coming to outline their plans for bringing high speed broadband to Great Bromley.
The meeting will take place in the village hall on 27th March and to be successful the venture needs YOUR support
to go forward so do attend the meeting.
New Option - September 2011
You may be aware that Great Bromley Parish Council has been working with Tendring District Council to identify ways of bringing high speed broadband to the village. A potential supplier has now been identified and there is the possibility that the necessary infrastructure can be installed at no cost to the village. Recent announcements in the media have detailed high speed broadband solutions for the people of Colchester and BT have announced further plans for Tendring including an upgraded service in Manningtree. However none of these schemes will benefit Great Bromley which falls into an area referred to as 'the final third' - basically the bit left behind that the government is looking to third party suppliers to provide a solution.
As previously mentioned any supplier needs assurance that there is necessary interest in the area so the investment they are prepared to put in is worth their while. As such the Parish Council will be required to conduct a house to house survey of every property in the parish to gauge the potential take up of any such service.
To whet your appetite the service being proposed will have a number of competitive price bands offering different speeds. At the top end an initial download speed of 20Mbps (increasing to 40Mbps in due course) will be available. To give an idea of performance, an hour long TV programme on the BBC iPlayer takes approximately 2.5 hours to download with the average speed available in Great Bromley. At 20Mbps it will take 3.5 minutes.
The Parish Council is working with Tendring DC to finalise details of the
survey that needs to be carried out and it is intended that it be completed
before the end of the year. Further details will appear here as they become
available.
Neil Skinner
UPDATE January 2011
Many thanks to everybody who voted in the BT 'Race to Infinity' competition to bring high speed broadband to Great Bromley. In the end the Ardleigh exchange got 134 votes out of a possible 1,138 (11.78%) and Great Bentley received 166 votes out of a possible 1,998 (8.31%). Obviously the number of votes cast will not see BT rushing to provide an enhanced service to the village in the near future. However, it is interesting to note that the number of votes cast locally is significantly higher than neighbouring areas in North Essex and South Suffolk.
On a more positive note, the government has announced that the service that would have been provided by the BT Infinity programme is actually likely to be rolled out across the country anyway - they say before the end of this parliament. This will be funded by money from the TV license fee. Obviously we would like to see high speed broadband in Great Bromley much sooner so we will continue to encourage other suppliers to the area. The challenge will be to persuade them that there is sufficient interest based on the numbers who voted in the BT Infinity campaign.