If you are experiencing slow broadband in the Hurst Lane development and already know enough about BT Community Fibre Partnerships to register your interest then click the button below. Otherwise, more detailed information is available further down the page.
The joint housing development off Hurst Lane in Auckley comprised of new homes built by Barratt, David Wilson and Taylor Wimpey is currently served by a single green telephone cabinet connected to the Finningley exchange. This provides wired broadband to all of the houses on the development. According to the BT DSL Checker the estimated speed of ADSL broadband to homes in the development is between 1 and 3 Mbps however local residents have experienced much slower speeds.
The Government is working with BT Openreach and Local Authorities to provide 'superfast' fibre broadband to communites across the UK via a number of local initiatves. Superfast South Yorkshire (SFSY) are taking care of the fibre broadband rollout to homes and communities across the county. However, as the development was not completed in 2014, the homes here are not included in the SFSY plans. As of 11th April 2017 there are no plans from BT Openreach or the Local Government to provide fibre broadband to the residents of the development.
The broadband to homes in our development is currently delivered over traditional underground copper cabling. This technology has been in use for many years and isn't designed to support the demands of modern Internet usage. Fibre broadband upgrades the connection between the telephone exchange and local cabinets (sometimes even directly to the home) with fibre optic cabling which supports much faster download and upload speeds.
A Comunity Fibre Partnership is designed to bridge the gap where there are no formal plans for rollout of superfast fibre broadband to the area served by a green telephone cabinet. It requires local residents to work with BT to first establish the demand for fibre and then work on a solution to get the homes in the community connected. More information including the process for a partnership is available on the BT Site.
The Government has made a grant of £350 available to every home which is currently unable to achieve broadband speeds of over 2 Mbps. With 750 homes in the development, that is a very large potential fund to pay for the cost of bringing fibre broadband to the development. A recent success story from Cheshire shows how residents pooled their grant money to bring fibre broadband to their development at no cost to themselves.
The first step in the process is to gather the contact information of everybody who is interested in creating a partnership. This is so that BT can assess the demand and requirements for fibre in the area and also captures the current broadband speeds of homes in the development. There is no commitment at this stage, and is just a registration of interest.
The information will be entered into a spreadsheet and submitted to BT to begin the process. Further information on the next steps in the process is available on the BT site. Everyone who registers will be kept updated via email.
Although the standard ADSL broadband is available to all on the development through the phone line, it is slow and not suitable for many people's modern-day requirements for browsing, streaming and gaming.
A number of the UK mobile providers also sell mobile wifi hotspots designed to allow a number of devices to share a mobile data SIM connection. Our development has good 4G coverage from a number of the providers. The issue with using this as a substitute for home broadband is that data plans usually have strict download limits and going over these can be expensive
Satellite broadband is also available across the UK from a number of providers. This involves the installation of satellite receiving equipment to your house which usually comes at a cost, however the BDUK grants can be put towards this if you currently have less than 2 Mbps broadband. Satellite broadband can achieve connection speeds of up to 22 Mbps however as with mobile data all plans have strict download limits.
If you have any questions, comments or would like to get involved with the organisation of the partnership then don't hesitate to send us an email. If you are still interested in being part of the partnership, you can register your details by clicking the button below.