£2m boost for Buckinghamshire broadband

19th September 2011

Buckinghamshire (in the form of Bucks Business First, formally Bucks Economic Learning Partnership) were delighted to have their application accepted for a grant of the Government’s money for broadband development in the county – Bucks has been given £2.1m. This will be split among some of the already ongoing projects in the Vale (where there are the most ‘not spots’) and other areas in Buckinghamshire.

At present, BAC3 (the community interest company that Terry Cavender and I created), is looking at some new exciting options for providing some pilot projects north of Buckingham, and once again Terry has come up trumps delivering on some fantastic private sector collaborations.

The Economy Scrutiny Committee (of which I am vice-chair) at AVDC has agreed to look at broadband provision in the Vale as part of a three-stage (or more if necessary) review, and I hope that this will provide an opportunity for AVDC to consider what work is being done at present to improve broadband provision – with particular reference to our rural economy – and suggest ways that we can move forward with some of the good work already being done. It should also be a great opportunity for us to identify all the smaller community projects that are going on at present and link their work up to create bigger and better opportunities for the district and surrounding areas outside of small villages.

£5000 granted for broadband vision

4th January 2011

The Local Area Forum (funded by Bucks County Council) has agreed to grant us £5000 from it’s local priorities budget to set up our Community Interest Company (CIC) to begin delivering on various broadband projects around the region. The idea of the company is to explore options with commercial companies to commission, deliver and finance various solutions for broadband. There are many ways that broadband can be delivered to rural areas – options range from satellites, wireless towers, ducting being laid over or under ground, or linking villages up with already enabled ‘community hubs’ like schools, hospitals and churches – and the CIC will be looking at creating the right ‘formula’ for working out what solutions are both logistically and financially most suitable for this.

A particularly interest element that we are looking at is the use of rights of way to lay ducting for fibres. The  CIC would apply for grants to repay the cost of the ducting and therefore making the ducting a community asset, renting it out to service providers and putting profits in to the CIC to continue it’s work.

The Business, Innovation and Skills department has money available for projects like ours  - £530million from their £830million for broadband project will go to help rural areas build digital hubs for fibre optic connections. The grant applications open in March 2011.

Community Interest Company created to deliver on broadband vision in Buckinghamshire

3rd January 2011

Our Community Interest Company is set up! The Buckingham Area Community and Communication Consortium (BAC3) will deliver a range of community projects around the local area.

We intend to work with a range of partners to explore offerings from commercial companies to commission, deliver and/or finance broadband solutions including the optional use of ducting to be put into rights of way. Grants would then be sought to repay the cost of this ducting so it becomes a community asset.

Service providers such as BT, Sky, Virgin and others would then be invite to rent space in that duct at relatively low costs to them. This approach enables those service providers to offer a range of commercial services to residential, educational and business ventures in the rural areas.

Utilising proposed partnerships with BCC and the ROW team, BAC3 will engage with landowners and coordinate the use of volunteers to install the duct into footpaths between Buckingham and the identified villages. This would include community volunteers through Community Impact Bucks (CIB) and offenders from community service orders. Commercial contractors will be used as necessary.

We will be working with the recommendations made by Buckinghamshire Economic and Learning Partnership (BELP) to deliver other broadband projects into the community where they are identified as needed using a range of technologies established as being the appropriate fit for that locality.

It is also anticipated that BAC3 could extend the solutions and ducting models to other areas after pilot projects are completed and that there may be other projects of community benefit that align them selves to delivery through this CIC including work on flooding and administration of grant funding for the area.

Race to Infinity Update – November 15th 2010:

We are already up to 62 votes on the BT Race to Infinity – this is over 15% of the exchange, which within just a few weeks work is fantastic. We need 75% of the exchange to sign up for BT to engage with our community about what they might be able to do for our broadband speed.

Keep spreading the work – even if this just means knocking on your neighbour’s door to make sure they’ve signed up, or mentioning it at any village meetings. If you can deliver leaflets to houses in your area then please contact me.

What is Community Broadband?

Fast becoming the ‘new utility’, broadband is now as crucial to our economy, prosperity and life chances as steam was to the first Industrial Revolution. Rural residents cannot be left out of this. Many rural communities find themselves unable to get mainstream solutions from BT and others with the result that they remain on the wrong side of the digital divide. If you live or work within one of these areas you will know only too well these frustrations.

Through some excellent lobbying with BELP, BT have now agreed to give the Buckingham telephone exchange superfast broadband capability in December 2011. However, as a community we still need to work on how to get that service to the outlying populations clustered around the town.

A small group of us are working with a number of opportunities to address this including leveraging the work so far of BELP.These possible solutions include:

• WiFi Solutions such as the Village Network

• Working with community groups of village residents to get fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) where appropriate demand exists and using existing ducting where it is in place.

• Laying community owned ducting along rights of way including footpaths and bridleways funded through grants and commercial sponsorship.

We have setup a website which will evolve over the coming months at www.bac3.net. Through this we aim to provide information on the options available and to assist those determined, like us, to get 21^st century broadband into the rural communities. There are a number of communities that now have high-quality, professional and reliable broadband services in areas beyond the reach of traditional ADSL.

BT’s Race To Infinity

BT are looking for ‘nominations’ for getting the smaller village exchanges upgraded. They will be bringing BT Infinity to Buckingham in December next year (yey!) and if we can get most of the 396 users of our local exchange to vote we can get some of the new capabilities into the villages too.

Please go to Race To Infinityand click on VOTE NOW to register your interest in expanding the broadband provision for our local exchange.

We need as many votes as possible to get BT to take notice!