News

Fibre to the Home networks are being built all over the world (although not in the UK) as governments increasingly understand that in order to compete effectively they need to use the best in class technology. This humorous little ad from New Zealand makes the point about fibre very effectively:

The Colne Valley Fibre project is delivering a workshop/seminar event as a key element of the forthcoming annual conference of the Marsden & Slaithwaite Renaissance programme on November 21 in Marsden.

Participants will have the opportunity to get up to speed with the recent history of the development of next generation broadband in the UK and more widely, learn why this technology is so important to the future of the Colne Valley and other rural areas, and participate in the development of a strategy to create a community owned network for Marsden and Slaithwaite.

We are very pleased to announce that an application for support to the DTA'sCultivating Enterprise programme has been successful.

The support and funding that has been made available will enable us to greatly enhance the profile of the project and run a series of targeted events designed to inform local residents and businesses, and also to gain support from some of the key local public, private and third sector organisations.

As part of the development work being undertaken we will also be upgrading and enhancing the website.

The BBC has been up in Cumbria talking to the fibre activists. Here's the clip of Rory Cellan-Jones interviewing Daniel Heery, Alston's fibre champion.

In this week's budget Darling announced support for Stephen Carter's 2Mbps 'universal' service (although it still seems that they won't guarantee 100% availability!)

Whilst this news is of course welcome, and will finally begin the work of plugging the gaps left behind by BT's inadequate ADSL deployment over the last ten years, most of us are of the view that it is far too little, and certainly far too late.

Following the Digital Britain Summit - the high point of which from my reading was Peter Mandelson not ruling out public sector intervention (whoop di doo!) - the main fallout seems to be the increasing realisation that BT is simply not up to the job.

Lots of activity recently to update readers:

We have received some positive feedback about our Grassroots Grants funding application, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will see a positive outcome on that in the next few weeks. If so that will really enable us to move forwards much more quickly.

I presented the project to the councillors and community representatives on our local area committee the other day, and the feedback was really positive. I now need to follow that up with some concrete proposals about how they can help us to deliver the project.

Hi
My name is Roy Bennett and I am the founder of the National Community Broadband Association, based in Whitby North Yorkshire, we are looking to join up with and share our resources with those who seek to empower the community and enable it to own and operate its own Fibre/wireless broadband network.