Wadhurst Broadband Upgrade to Fibre
The village of Wadhurst in East Sussex was enabled for broadband (ADSL) Internet services in September 2003 after a successful local campaign to demonstrate commercially viable demand to B.T. (British Telecom), the incumbent supplier. These services were provided over copper and have not increased significantly in speed since that time.
Most residents currently have Internet links of 7Mbps or less. An upgrade of the local exchange to ADSL 2+ with the potential for 24Mbps over copper is due next year but this is over 4 years after the first UK exchanges received this upgrade. Whilst this may be a welcome improvement over the current situation, the Internet is constantly evolving and copper-based services are already being replaced by much faster fibre-based services in much of the world including the UK.
There are two main Fibre-based solutions available in the U.K. for most communities:
FTTC – Fibre To The Cabinet –up to 40Mbps downlink, up to 2 Mbps uplink (Location dependent). This is usually the cheapest and quickest upgrade and involves bringing fibre to street cabinets around the community and then using existing copper lines for the final link into homes and business premises. This is the most common installation for residential use in the UK at the present time.
Note that Mbps = Megabits per second.
FTTH – Fibre To The Home (or FTTP – Fibre To The {Business} Premises) – potentially unlimited downlink and uplink but likely to be capped at 50Mbps each way to start with. This involves taking Fibre all the way into the home or business, eliminating all copper links, and is usually more expensive and time consuming to set up. It is considered the ultimate upgrade and some supporters argue that FTTC will ultimately be extended to FTTH anyway so why not save money overall and go straight to FTTH?
Recently, the upgrade to fibre (mainly FTTC) has started to roll out nationwide including the local towns of Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. However, Wadhurst is unlikely to see this fibre-based upgrade until 2015 at the earliest if the community waits for government subsidies to take effect. Clearly the village is not considered a priority for upgrade by government or commercial suppliers.
Wadhurst Parish Council has devised a simple survey to gauge local interest in the use of these services. If the response is positive the information will be used to try and expedite the introduction of fibre-based services to the Wadhurst telephone exchange through lobbying commercial organisations. The intention is to provide the community of Wadhurst with the most up-to-date Internet services available for the benefit of all the residents be it for leisure or commercial activities.
The Parish Council need the help of local residents to achieve this and look forward to hearing from anyone who resides in the parish.
One important note to make is that not all residents of Wadhurst will be able to benefit from a direct upgrade to fibre-based broadband, however it is implemented. This is not a technology that will overcome all problems such as poor quality telephone lines and/or distance from the telephone exchange. Some Internet users, usually those outside the village boundaries, have failed to benefit much from the current copper-based broadband in the village. Unfortunately, similar limitations are likely to occur even after an upgrade to Fibre. However, those affected may well see some improvement in their Internet speed and this survey may highlight areas where the use of alternative technologies such as wireless links could provide additional benefits.
The main aim at the moment is to gather as much information as we can about the situation in and around Wadhurst so we can determine the best way of moving forward and hopefully persuade a commercial organisation that introducing fibre-based services to Wadhurst is commercially viable.
The online survey can be accessed here
There are a number of commercial organisations that are involved with installing fibre-based broadband in the U.K. Most of the installations are currently concentrated in areas of high population density. To counter this, the government has announced it is making around £530 million available for the subsidy of fibre broadband installation in areas considered unattractive to commercial enterprises. This is the subsidy which enables to East Sussex County Council to declare that Wadhurst should have FTTC by 2015. It assumes, however, that a commercial partner can be found to part-fund the installation.
These organisations will be the initial targets for any marketing campaign raised by Wadhurst Parish Council if the results of the online survey are encouraging.