Well Hill broadband installed

As I have written in previous posts, KCC has been working to install superfast broadband in Well Hill via a Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) system. This would also have the benefit of addressing long-standing problems with poor quality telephone lines in parts of Well Hill. After many delays and disappointments, the system has been installed by BT Openreach and is now live, with residents able to place orders for the service. You can find the link to the Openreach FTTP providers here.

Regrettably, difficulties in securing a wayleave have affected access for a small number of properties, and work is under way to seek to resolve this issue. Overall, however, this represents a welcome resolution of a very long-standing issue for Well Hill residents.  

Well Hill broadband: progress at last

Well Hill's broadband (and telephone) problems have been continuing for a number of years, and I have written about them on this blog before.

On Tuesday evening, KCC officer George Chandler and I attended a meeting in Well Hill. We were able to present the good news that Well Hill is at the front of projects for spending gainshare (the funds released from BT following higher than expected take-up of superfast broadband, and ploughed back into the BT/BDUK/KCC broadband contract). Government policy is now to promote Fibre to the Premises broadband (as opposed to the previous focus on Fibre to the Cabinet) and the Well Hill project fits well with that.

 Progress should now be rapid over the coming weeks and months.

Well Hill: broadband latest

Well Hill has long suffered from severe problems with its broadband and (in some cases) telephone services. The area is served from a cabinet some distance away at Hewitt's roundabout; the copper wire connections from the cabinet to Well Hill properties are long and subject to interference from electrical supply sources (such as the National Grid) - what is known as Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise (REIN). 

As a result, some telephone services (notably those in Pump Lane and parts of Well Hill) are very poor, and - even though the Hewitt's roundabout cabinet was fibre enabled by a private provider some time ago - broadband services are very variable, ranging from the minimal to the sub-superfast and with poor reliability.

KCC has long been seeking to tackle the problem as part of the overall BDUK project to raise superfast broadband coverage across the County, now in its second phase. In the spring of last year, there appeared to be a solution in sight. A new cabinet would be installed at the bottom of Rock Hill, supplanting that in Hewitt's roundabout, and it was anticipated that this would be installed this autumn. However, the scheme (along, I understand, with other similar schemes across the country) fell foul of an Ofcom objection on competition grounds (since the services installed by the private provider at Hewitt's roundabout would be supplanted by a state aided alternative, even though Well Hill residents do not receive superfast broadband from it and remain subject in many cases to an unacceptably poor telephone service).

This has naturally caused great concern among residents, and George Chandler (KCC's project manager leading the BDUK initiative) and I attended a public meeting in the Mission Church on Monday evening. Happily, however, we were able to tell residents that an alternative approach, relying on Fibre to the Premises technology from the new cabinet, has been agreed in principle. 

The aim is to roll this out as fast as possible, though even this will take many months. The new approach is still subject to risks; extensive tree works needed to accommodate the fibre cables could push up costs to an unacceptable level, and it is possible that there could be further regulatory problems, though the scheme is very different from its predecessor. Nonetheless, this looks to be a major step back on track, and George is taking the project forward vigorously. He and I will make sure that Well Hill residents are kept closely informed as to the next developments.

Making Kent (and Darent Valley) Quicker

As described in an earlier post, Kent County Council has been working for some years to bring faster broadband to those parts of the county - around a quarter of properties - that will not benefit from the unaided commercial development of the network. In my previous Cabinet role at KCC I oversaw our agreement last year with government agency BDUK and BT and I remain involved in our monitoring of that programme and our development of new broadband initiatives.

Last year's agreement - part of the 'Making Kent Quicker' scheme - involved a £40 million investment (£10 million of it from KCC) to ensure that at least 91% of Kent properties had access to superfast broadband - defined as download speeds of 24 Megabits per second (MBpS) or faster - and that all properties had access to at the very least 2 MBpS in the project area. This would bring superfast broadband to over 120,000 properties across Kent and be concluded by the end of 2015. The main method of achieving this is to bring fibre to each of the BT cabinets that you will see dotted around the area by adding an extra cabinet next to the existing one.

By the end of September, more than 50,000 properties had been covered by the scheme. More immediately relevant to Darent Valley residents, Sevenoaks District was within Phase 2 of the scheme that ran from March to September, i.e. it has just been concluded. The Farningham exchange, serving much of the Division, was one of the later exchanges in the District to be enabled to supply fibre to the cabinets it serves, but this took place in early September.

You can check out the position for your own home using the postcode checker onwww.kent.gov.uk/broadband  This is updated very rapidly after fibre is brought to each cabinet, so the information should be very current. You will then need to contact your Internet Service Provider to upgrade. Some of the most remote areas may not have been covered in this phase but will be part of a final, County-wide phase in the latter part of 2015.

Longer term, there will be a Phase 2 to Making Kent Quicker, to which central government and KCC are each committing £5.6 million with the aim of achieving at least 95% superfast coverage by the end of 2017. It is anticipated that the contract for this will be awarded in April 2015. BDUK are currently developing a Phase 3 programme to tackle the most difficult areas of all ('the final 5%').Kent is a national pilot area for work currently being undertaken by BDUK, to trial new technologies, which will inform these plans to achieve full coverage. 

Broadband rollout reaches Sevenoaks District

It is just over a year since Kent’s £40 million agreement with government agency BDUK and BT to bring superfast broadband to much of the county was announced (post of 18 March last year). The terms of our agreement were to bring superfast broadband (download speeds of more than 24 MBpS) to at least 91% of properties in Kent; to ensure that at least 95% of properties had access to higher-speed fibre-based broadband; and to ensure that remaining properties had access to a broadband service with at least 2MBpS download speed (and in most cases much more). All this was to be delivered by the end of 2015.

So far, the scheme has been running ahead of schedule, with the first services going live in December. From the start of April, we are in Phase 2 of the project, when the work starts in Sevenoaks – and the first services are planned to be live from September.

In addition, the government recently announced indicative allocations of its Superfast Extension Programme Fund, which totals some £250 million. This Fund aims to meet concerns that more remote rural areas will be left behind in the move to superfast broadband, by providing support for achieving at least 95% superfast coverage by 2017. Kent’s initial allocation is £5.6 million. This comes on top of Kent’s having secured £1.87 million from the (separately run) Rural Community Broadband Fund, overseen by DEFRA. This will benefit areas in four Districts, including Sevenoaks (though in the case of this particular fund it will be allocated in the south of the District to meet the scheme's eligibility criteria).

Kent has successfully been in the forefront of counties participating in the BDUK scheme for the benefit of its residents, and the latest announcements offer the prospect of still wider broadband coverage. Meanwhile, we are now at the point where the scheme becomes real for residents of Sevenoaks and of Darent Valley. You can find more information about the coverage in your local area here .