BROADBAND
Help from the Government The Government eventually agreed to aid the South West with central funding. This led to the formation of the Connecting Devon and Somerset programme (CDS). This is an alliance of several councils and technology providers (mainly BT) who are tasked with providing Devon and Somerset with superfast fibre broadband. Some of you will have already benefited from this programme. Many others are still waiting. This has been an agonisingly slow process cloaked in secrecy. BT’s initial contract aimed to provide 90% of premises in Devon and Somerset with superfast broadband by late 2016, but now has been delayed to late 2017. This has not been helped by CDS’ reluctance to provide detailed progress information. Due to national pressure CDS has published new maps which can be found at connectingdevonandsomerset.co.uk. You can enter your postcode to view the latest news for your property. Be warned: it comes with a full page of caveats from CDS. The next stage Further funding has been made available to increase coverage from 90% to 95% of premises @businessactionm | Winter 2014
in Devon and Somerset. The funding has to be matched by contributions from local councils. To date, CDS has not been able to Things you can do fully achieve this, ➤➤ Lobby local MPs leaving a shortfall ➤➤ Check minimum contract terms of around £5-6 ➤➤ Research other million. options thoroughly The Superfast ➤ ➤ Check for updates on Extension the CDS website Programme ➤➤ Join the Facebook (SEP) was put group ‘Fast Broadband out to tender in for Devon & Somerset’ October 2014. Once again, the details of who will benefit from this are being kept confidential. The programme itself should commence sometime in 2015. Where does this leave us? Well, if you are covered under the original BT contract, you should be getting superfast broadband by the end of 2017. If you are in the next 5% covered by the SEP, you should get superfast broadband in a similar timescale. The final 5% The only commitment from CDS is that everyone will have access to a minimum 2 Mbps connection speed by the end of 2017. A speed of 2 Mbps is
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