Category Archives: News

Latest announcements and progress related to local broadband services.

News

Light Relief…

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Well, that’s us received our first abuse letter, I assume in response to our piece on Radio 4 the other day.  It’s a postcard berating us for seeking funding for “Big Boys’ Toys”, from someone who clearly regards the telegraph (not, please note “The Telegraph”, although both may be true) as a new-fangled invention of the Devil. We were going to reply but our stone chisels are a bit blunt at the moment – we’ve been trying to work out how to build this wheel thingy…

Dear Beachcomber, we’re very glad, if a tad surprised, to hear that you’re still alive and venting. Keep it up.

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News

Universal Service Exemption

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I was asked to comment last night on Radio 4’s PM programme about the commitment in the Queen’s Speech to 10Mb/s broadband for all in the UK by 2020. The BBC only had a very limited time available, but I did manage to get ‘fatuous’ and ‘insane’ into my piece, which gives you some idea of where I’m coming from. The on-air piece itself is available here on iPlayer (starting 17:37 in).

Continue reading Universal Service Exemption →

Balquhidder Broadband, News

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back…

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Yes, these are pictures of a nuclear bunker, this being the forthcoming Bogons data centre near Comrie. It is also where our fibre should meet that of the wider world and will, we hope, achieve  economies of scale from aggregation with other users that will make our network ever cheaper to run: if we just bought our backhaul (the link between the glen and the wider internet) at about the same initial cost from a commercial provider, we’d still have to pay Openreach’s Excess Construction Costs to get the link from the Strathyre Exchange to the entrance to the glen, but we’d never thereafter gain any benefit from others using the wider link. With the bunker, the idea is that we start at par and then go down in cost from there.

Continue reading Two Steps Forward, One Step Back… →

Balquhidder Broadband, News

February News…

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Build Progress

We’ve had the cabling company that works with Bogons, our preferred supplier, out to look at the glen and they’ve now been commissioned to come back and carry out the necessary detailed survey (taking 4/5 days) to fully cost what’s needed. That’s happening from 8 March. We’ve asked them to provide us with a menu of costs for each part of the network: the 13km that gets to all bar 22 of the 178 properties in our area and for each segment beyond that (totalling another 13km). This will let us work out just how much of the work we need to do ourselves to get to all parts of the glen: we know that the only way we will be able to provide fibre to every house or business in the area will through significant community effort as part of the lay.

The rest of our costs are now fairly firm, so we’re awaiting the survey results that will let us know just where we stand. We’re including in that survey the costs of crossing both the glen road where needed and the A84 where we’re serving Balquhidder Station.

Continue reading February News… →

Balquhidder Broadband, News

Copper-Bottomed Con

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Whilst we and other communities in the UK push ahead with bringing fibre to every property in our area, The UK and Local governments continue to give a good impression of being in thrall to the BT Group, an underachieving and disinterested private monopoly that still tries to pretend that copper-to-premises is a valid service model for the twenty-first century. Continue reading Copper-Bottomed Con →

Community Broadband Scotland, Local, News

At Last: Our First Public Meeting

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On Friday 20th November we held  the first public meeting for Balquhidder Community Broadband: we’ve been working away these past months to get costs, tenders and demand sorted out and now have at least the first steps towards effective, community-driven broadband for our area. And not before time. For any who missed the occasion, a video version of the presentation is on youtube:

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Showing that we’re a long, thin community. But we knew that.
Taking names…
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Local, News

Balquhidder Community Broadband

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In light of the CBS funding for broadband provision to Balquhidder, we have now created a Community Interest Company (CIC) to contract, promote and support the local broadband service.

Our remit is to provide Balquhidder and those surrounding areas not addressed by Digital Scotland’s rollout with broadband, as a minimum meeting the OFCOM and EU definition of Superfast BroadBand (SFBB) of 30 Mbps, matching the declared goal of the Scottish Government for “World Class” broadband services and being ‘future-proof’ as needs and services change.

For further information, please contact us.

Community Broadband Scotland, Local, News

Better news: Balquhidder Broadband

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After the major, albeit long predicted, disappointments of BT’s failure to include Balquhidder in its rollout of fibre broadband and Digital Scotland’s refusal to recognise the deeply flawed nature of their contract with BT, we are now in the much happier position of being able to report that Community Broadband Scotland has accepted our case for capital funding for broadband provision to the Balquhidder area. There are several ways in which we can do this and we’re now working with CBS to put together an initial invitation to tender. Continue reading Better news: Balquhidder Broadband →