17/06/2021
For those of you who aren't in the Warboys No Silly Rules Group, I'm copying the post that I put up there to make sure that I'm covering the area thoroughly.
Thinking about the offer from County Broadband for Warboys. Firstly, to be absolutely clear, I don't have any interest in County Broadband from a personal or financial point of view.
However, I feel it would be a shame if we, as a village, missed out on looking at what is on offer.
We know several things, some of which are obvious such as that reliable broadband is a necessity rather than a luxury, especially with our experience of Covid-19 and lockdown and the use of apps like Zoom. We do not have any guarantees that this will not happen again. So we know how important this means of communication is to all our lives in these circumstances.
We also know that BT is not interested in allowing us to have Fibre To The Home - it is just not on their radar for Warboys at all and could be many years in coming. We have already been through the process of BT actively ignoring our village before when ADSL2 - an earlier broadband version - was brought in. I do not hold out any hope that they will change over FTTH.
The only people who have access to FTTH are those who have the money to actively pay many hundreds of pounds to BT for a personal service or who are lucky enough to have a house on a new estate with the fibre option already built in.
Personally, I have no interest in waiting to see the price of my house fare less favourably than those in Broughton, Pidley and Fenton, Woodhurst, Oldhurst, The Raveleys and Upwood all of which are either using County Broadband or are actively looking to get it implemented.
Potential new owners look for the best services in the village they want to live, having the slowest and least reliable network for the local area will drive them elsewhere. I don't need to tell the youngsters how high-speed broadband improves gaming! Nor do I need to tell businesses how reliable and fast networks help income.
Please look at the County Broadband options as the figures being bandied about in the village are in many cases false and are based on guesswork. I have also heard that "you are locked in for two years" as being a problem. It is exactly the same for every other broadband provider, including BT, they're the rules.
My understanding is that County Broadband need more interest or they will pull out of Warboys and focus on the surrounding villages. I don't think we should let that happen!
Check it out rather than run with hearsay!
Here's the County Broadband web page:
County Broadband Work With Communities In East Anglia To Build Hyperfast Full-Fibre Broadband Networks, Ready For The Future
