Broadband for Stock? News

Update 29th July

EEDA Competition Results

The EEDA announced the winners of their "Demand Broadband" competition. Unfortunately we were not successful. However, all is not lost since the EEDA state that: "In addition to these winners a further 25 of the entries that we received overlapped with some of the winning bids mentioned above. We have decided in these cases to grant the funding to the larger bids, and we will be encouraging them to include the other that entered the competition within their broadband network plans."

The Essex winners are:
Essex Countywide Broadband Networking Project
The Chesterfords Demand Broadband Project
The Rodings Broadband Action Group

BBC News and ADSL Guide each have reports on the competition results

In other news...

BT recently increased the number of exchanges which have a threshold set. In spite of having over 110 registrations of interest, Stock is yet to have a threshold set. We note that some exchanges have a threshold as low as 150. If you have not already done so, please register with the provider of your choice. Please note that registration does not commit you to anything. If you change your mind, it will cost you nothing.

ADSL Guide provide this interesting facilty BT ADSL Demand Tracker - Historic Exchange Data
Update 13th June 2003

Forget BT?

It looks like BT have decided that we will not get DSL from them in the near future. Availability checks on Stock numbers get the following response:
Broadband Availability Checker

For Telephone Number 0127784xxxx on Exchange STOCK

Sorry - broadband ADSL is not yet available in your area. It is unlikely there will be enough demand to cover the cost of upgrading your exchange, but we will continue to monitor the number of people registering their interest in broadband ADSL in this area.
Thank you for your interest

It is still worth registering with BT, if only to give all potential suppliers and indication of interest. The current figure stands at 104. BT say that they will be DSL enabling Ingatestone by 6th August 2003.


Good places to find the latest news on broadband and wireless:
The Register Wireless & WLAN and Broadband sections

GRL 13/6/03

Update 18th May


Thanks to John Turkentine for this update and to John and the others from Galleywood who are doing all the hard work on the combined EEDA entry.

Updating the Community

The competition entry for a Wi-Fi Network Broadband service to cover a combined community of ~16000 residents in the Galleywood, Hanningfields, Ingatestone, Roxwell, Stock and Writtle area was hand delivered by the deadline of 30th April. The application has been made under the organisation's new name, CRISP (Chelmsford Ring Internet Service Provision) initially to cover the approximate area, shaded green, on the attached map.

EEDA have announced a reduction from 195 applications in mid April to 102 as at 1st May bidding for a share of the £3.3M. The CRISP entry is an ambitious but well planned community supported application, combining the experience, specific skills, enthusiasm of many volunteers who have identified current market failure and investigated a number of technical solutions with established integrators and their customers around Cambridge and the rural areas Suffolk

Preliminary work is in hand with community representatives from the previous individual steering groups and organisations to establish CRISP as a Partnership to effectively manage the planning, construction, installation and provision of a Broadband service with specific benefit and value to the Community. This will prepare the ground for the anticipated announcement of the successful applications on 17th June, and the award of funding. CRISP have planned, subject to adequate funding award, to commence network build during September, followed by an initial service being established by year end

Use is being made of established community websites www.galleywoodparishcouncil.org.uk www.stock. org.uk etc and their links to announce future CRISP activities, and specifically when the funding award has been made

Regards,
John Turkentine

Update 11th May 2003

CRISP- (Chelmsford Ring Internet Service Provision)


The viability of the original Galleywood EEDA competition entry was diminished when BT and cable roll out for large areas of Galleywood were announced. However, there are still significant areas of Galleywood and surrounding villages that have little chance of getting DSL or cable Internet.

In order to produce a sound business plan, more potential subscribers were needed. CRISP is the amalgamation of the requirements for areas south and west of Chelmsford that will will not receive broadband from via DSL or cable.

This scheme is our best hope of getting a high speed Internet service. More details and background are published . Registration with BT and EEDA will still help our application. 
 
 
Please Register
These registrations seem to be safe from spam risks, so please take a few moments to register your interest. This will support our case for broadband for the village. We have 96 registrations on the BT site at the time of writing.
Registering with BT http://www.bt.com/broadband/ will probably never result in BT enabling the exchange, but it will indicate to potential suppliers that there is some business in the village. So, please register for ADSL with a provider of your choice. Nildram have a very nice, simple interface to the pre-registration process here. (This is not an endorsement of Nildram, since we have no experience of their service quality.).

Registering with the EEDA's scheme, "Broadband Brokerage" will help with our case with some suppliers.
 
Other Links
Archived stock.org.uk broadband pages

Graham Leighton, 11th May 2003, 18th May 2003, 29th July 2003

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