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Co-Funded Community Fibre Partnerships
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The first Oxfordshire community to sign up for the OCC Better Broadband Co-Funding scheme is at Goosey Wick, near Charney Bassett. OCC has contracted Openreach to deliver a Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) solution to eleven premises, effectively providing a 1000-fold increase for most of these in their potential broadband speeds.
The scheme is set up to allow the Better Broadband scheme to assist communities by joining together financial contributions from the local residents and businesses, Openreach, and the county council. Without this approach the solution would be unaffordable for the public purse to entirely fund. Notably, this solution also comprises an element of ‘self-dig’, where a field is being productively used with the landowner installing ducting which Openreach will adopt and blow fibre though. This avoids costly installation of extensive new ducting which would otherwise have needed to run several kilometres around the periphery.
OCC is in discussion about the scheme with other interested communities and underway with a scheme for Godington in Cherwell likely to proceed. We welcome any further interest. To read the full article please visit our website, ‘Latest news’ and follow this link for further information regarding the 'Co-Funded Fibre Broadband Partnership.' |
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Coming to a cabinet near you!
Since our last newsletter, the cabinets covering the following areas are now accepting orders:
- Banbury Business Park
- B481 area, Cookley Green
- Church Lane area, Pyrton
- Curle Avenue area, Harwell
- Fencott Road area, Murcott
- Fewcott Green area, Fewcott
- Frome Road area, Chilton
- Hinksey Hill area, Oxford
- Little Wittenham village
- Lodge Hill area, Abingdon
- Lower Heyford Road area, Caulcott
- Lower Tadmarton
- Manor Farm Lane, Balscote
- Milton Hill, Steventon
- Quarry Road area, Bayworth
- Station Road area, Baulking
- The Causeway area, Steventon
- Woolstone Road area, Woolstone
- Worminghall Road area, Waterperry
- Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Wallingford
Cabinets covering the following areas will soon begin accepting orders:
- Goring Heath Village
- Howland Road business park, Thame
- Rotherfield Peppard Village
- Shillingford Hill area, Wallingford
- Springhill area, Longworth
- Weston Business Park, Weston-on-the-Green
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Broadband providers must ditch 'misleading' speeds claims in adverts
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Broadband firms will no longer be able to advertise their fast broadband services based on the speeds just a few customers get, from May next year. Currently ISPs are allowed to use headline speeds that only 10% of customers will actually receive. In future, adverts must be based on what is available to at least half of customers at peak times. It follows research that suggested broadband advertising can be misleading for consumers. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) looked into consumers' understanding of broadband speed claims and found that many were confused by headline speeds that they would never actually get in their own homes.
The concerns were passed on to the Committees of Advertising Practice (Cap) which consulted with ISPs, consumer groups and Ofcom to find a better way to advertise fast net services. Most argued that the fairest and clearest way would be to use the average speeds achieved at peak time by 50% of customers. As well as insisting ISPs use ‘average’ instead of ‘up to’ speeds, Cap also urged ISPs to promote speed-checking facilities in their adverts so that users could test out the speeds they were likely to get from any given service.
Consumer victory
Director of the Committees of Advertising Practice, Shahriar Coupal, said:
"There are a lot of factors that affect the broadband speed a customer is going to get in their own home; from technology to geography, to how a household uses broadband. Our new standards will give consumers a better understanding of the broadband speeds offered by different providers when deciding to switch providers."
The UK's minister for digital Matt Hancock welcomed the change, describing it as:
“a victory for consumers. I'm delighted to see that CAP is finally changing the way broadband speeds are advertised. Headline 'up to' speeds that only need to be available to 10% of consumers are incredibly misleading - customers need clear, concise and accurate information in order to make an informed choice."
The ASA also considered whether the use of ‘fibre’ in broadband advertising was misleading for ISPs that only use fibre to the road-side phone cabinet, relying on a copper connection for the so-called last mile to a consumer's home. It found that most people saw the use of fibre as a ‘shorthand buzzword’ to describe fast broadband and concluded that it was not misleading for ISPs to use the term.
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Could you spare a couple of hours a week to teach people basic digital skills in a library? We’re looking for patient and friendly volunteers to teach digital skills to beginners. You don’t need to be an expert, just competent in using computers and good at communicating with learners of all ages.
Follow this link to find out more
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Technical factoids
‘Flying Fibre:'
In some cases it is less expensive to install fibre overhead on poles rather than laying ducting, especially where the road infrastructure comprises very narrow lanes with difficulty in achieving road closures. Openreach have relatively recently started using a new light-weight fibre suitable for overhead delivery via specialist teams sub-contracted for this element of solution delivery
Fibre to the Remote Node (FTTRN):
FTTRN is a technology proposed for delivery where there is a very low volume of premises to be connected – i.e. less than twenty. It is notionally less expensive than standing an entire cabinet, and uses street furniture (poles) on which to erect a small DSLAM which connects to the fibre network. This technology is currently paused due to challenges in finding a way to cost-effectively connect the power network. In some case this has led to a redesign of proposed solutions in our existing plans and has caused delivery dates to slip.
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Your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS)
What does ‘live-to-live migration’ mean?
When premises are connected to fibre-enabled cabinets but are too far to receive superfast speeds, the solution is to build a new combined DSLAM and PCP closer to these premises. This is a single box combining the copper telephone lines and the digital fibre connection points. This presents two challenges. Firstly, all Service Providers with customers on the existing (distant) cabinet, need to be advised of the new cabinet being built, such that they can install the necessary update to their equipment in the serving telephone exchange such that it can ‘recognise’ the new structure. Then during the actual switchover, resident’s telephone lines need to be physically moved off the ports on the distant cabinet, and onto the correct ports of the new closer cabinet. Then, all routing records need to be configured to recognise this new topology. As the residents of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell will attest, this can be tricky and Openreach are working on resolving how this end-to-end process can be achieved more smoothly.
What is meant by a ‘wayleave’ and why are these required?
A wayleave is required when the installation of a fibre broadband structure, or access to power, is needed on or across privately owned land. As we are now delivering into very rural areas, this becomes more problematic with highways (publicly owned land) being less suitable or not available. We currently have some twenty-five installations held up due to not being able to achieve the necessary wayleave. Whenever we know the exact location of the required wayleave, we do seek to help with gaining permission to build, but for these remaining problem wayleaves we are unable to establish who the landowner is for a number of different reasons.
Read more FAQs
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Follow progress - BBfO coverage maps
Residents and businesses opting for an upgrade will be able to access broadband download speeds of up to 80 megabits per second (Mbps) and uploads of up to 20Mbps.* The network is being rolled out by Openreach, therefore residents and businesses will have a range of Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
* These are the top wholesale speeds available from Openreach to all service providers; speeds offered by service providers may vary.
Find out more
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