News Jan 2010

It has been an exciting week in the campaign to improve the broadband speeds for Basingstoke...

First the good news. On Thursday evening, 28th January, some members of the campaign met with representatives of Basingstoke and Deane council, and our MP Maria Miller. I am happy to report that both the council and Maria are now fully behind the campaign, and have promised to do everything possible to make sure that all areas of Basingstoke receives the super fast broadband that BT has promised. Whilst members of the council have already met with the commercial managers of BT, not much progress has so far been made, but by pulling the interested parties together, a strengthened and more focused discussion will now start to happen.

In addition, the council and Maria have agreed to assist in looking at the other options that could work to provide super fast broadband to Basingstoke if (for commercial reasons), BT cannot or is unwilling to provide a solution to all houses in areas other than the town centre. This may include other telecoms providers.

We have also had discussions with BT to ask why the broadband deployment stopped at the town centre, and did not reach areas such as Hatch Warren or Chinenham. Whilst BT are very reluctant to provide us with the commercial reasons, they have agreed to a face to face meeting with the leaders of the Basingstoke broadband campaign, Maria Miller and the town council. This meeting is going to be arranged for mid February. At this stage, it is felt that a full open public meeting (where everybody can attend) would not be practical, however we are also trying to arrange a residents open meeting with BT where the public can present BT with their views as soon as possible. The Basingstoke Gazette is currently creating a news article regarding the meeting on the 28th ,and promised meeting with BT, and features a picture of Maria and the campaign members pictured with one of the not-upgraded phone cabinets (199).

Hampshire County Council have also reported that to date, over 1,100 have signed the eHampshire/Basingstoke Broadband Campaign petition, and the numbers continue to grow.

Now for the not so good news. It appears that as BT switches on parts of the new fibre optic deployment in the town centre, this has started to have a negative effect on the broadband connection speeds on the existing connections. Those of us living in areas such as Old Basing, Hatch Warren, Chineham, etc may already be seeing our connections drop out more and more often, and speeds decreasing as more homes are deployed with the new faster connection. We have worryingly seen reports that connections have been lost altogether.

The next course of action will be a major awareness campaign. Members of the Basingstoke Broadband campaign will be coming door to door over the next few weeks, passing out council provided information leaflets on the Broadband issue. This is obviously a time consuming effort, but this is needed to raise the profile of the campaign and collect even more names of the petition. The more names we have, the more pressure BT has to provide faster broadband to the entire town. If anybody would like to volunteer to join us, or even to target your local street/area, your contribution would be appreciated, and please just drop me an email (details below).

We would also ask that if you have the opportunity, please take to friends and neighbours in Basingstoke, point them to the campaign web site (www.basingstoke-broadband.co.uk) and ask them to join the campaign.

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