Superfast Broadband
Gigaclear Ultrafast broadband is now live in the village
Gigaclear have advised that connection to their service is now available.
Gigaclear rollout in Guiting Power July 2016
Gigaclear have advised that if you have a particular location on the street frontage where you'd like the connection POT installed, mark it with a small notice and if it's feasible they'll put the POT there. The blue paint indicates the planned location.
Gigaclear Q&A sessions March 2016
Fastershire confirmed that the unitary proposal between Cotswold District Council and West Oxfordshire will not affect the local Phase 2 Gigaclear delivery schedule.
Fastershire will shortly be releasing a revised set of eligible addresses on their website.
Gigaclear have advised that if you anticipate issues with the connection such as distance from the public road, private roads etc you should contact Gigaclear on 0186559100.
The same applies if you feel your property may need multiple connections or any other item that may impact nework design.
Gigaclear Ultrafast rollout scheduled to begin May 2016
The Guiting Power to Temple Guiting (FAS08 & FAS09) area is scheduled to be upgraded as the second part of the Gigalear rollout between April and November 2016. Details are available on the Fastershire Website.
BT upgrade for Guiting Power exchange
A request was made to BT Openreach after the public meeting to have the exchange upgraded to what BT term 21CN (WBC ADSL2+) technology as an interim measure while SuperFast broadband is pursued.
The upgrade is now in place and for the majority in Guiting Power download speeds will increase by 60% and more than double the upload speed in the village area.
A forecast of your speed is available via the BT Broadband Checker.
Depending on who you get your current Broadband from you may have to ask for your current service to be switched across from the older ADSL MAX.
For most suppliers this is a free upgrade with no change in ongoing fees, but you may have to chase it up.
To Register your interest for Ultrafast
There have been some queries on how to express interest in the rollout. Registering your interest with Gigaclear for Ultrafast Broadband will move us up the rollout schedule.
On the Gigaclear Website enter your postcode in the postcode checker than fill out the form on the next page.
Full list of premises released by Fastershire
Fastershire have updated their website and released the confirmed premises list for the Gigaclear rollout
of ultrafast broadband in the Cotswolds.
This is currently available only as a spreadsheet but will shortly be updated to a more integrated display.
There are two tabs on the spreadsheet but all premises included in the spreadsheet are part of the rollout.
If a postcode is included but a resident's property is not on the list, or if neighbours are included but someone isn't, then
Fastershire would like to know so they can investigate or note for future review.
If your address is NOT on this list, you should email info@fastershire.com IMMEDIATELY to advise them.
August - Parish briefing on Ultrafast broadband
The Guiting Power and Temple Guiting PC Chairs circultaed the following on the 20th of August
"We attended a Parish Information meeting with Fastershire & Gigaclear last night to collect further info regarding the promised rollout. In summary:
The important thing to note is that, even though Gigaclear will produce their preferred roll out schedule, their brochure says the following:
"Please note that in finalising the deployment plan we will try to go to areas with high sign up rates first wherever possible, so please do register or pre-order on our website (we do not take any money from any customer until the service is installed & working in their property)."
The Chief Executive of Gigaclear last night confirmed that they will stick to this policy so it is vital that anyone who wants SUPERFAST BROADBAND to their property registers as soon as we are able as this should move us up the schedule.
We will let you know when the list is available to check & when we can register.
Thanks for your support in the project - SUPERFAST IS COMING!!!!!!!! "
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Dawn Rimmer |
Michael Krier |
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June - Gigaclear to roll-out broadband in Guiting Power
On the 7th of June Gloucestershire County Council announced it had awarded a contract to Gigaclear to provide ultra fast broadband to more
than 6,000 homes across the Cotswolds including Guiting Power, as part of phase two of the national broadband funding.
The press release states that 6,495 homes in the Cotswolds will be included within the Gigaclear roll-out and includes the following statement...
“What was refreshing about this tender was the identification of the specific addresses of the 6,495 properties that the contract sought to serve. This clarity gave us the confidence to offer our Gigabit fibre broadband service to every single property in the tender.”
Construction is scheduled to commence in the Cotswolds in September 2015 with the first live connections by Christmas.
The map below is from the tender documents and includes the area served by Cabinet 2 where "every single property" will be offered the service. If you have a postcode in the white area you are included in the roll-out. At the project definition phase further properties will be added. An updated Fastershire website will provide information at the property level as will the Gigaclear website. A facility will also be available to ask for inclusion if you believe you've been missed.
The grey and red areas are not included.
If you are in the grey area north of Ford you are on the Stanton exchange and should check with Fastershire.
Gigaclear is a private company offering a FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) service with symmetrical speeds of up to 1000 Mbps (Mega bits per second). Currently their basic service starts at 50 Mbps upload and 50 Mbps download.
A section by section delivery plan with indicative dates will be available in September.
The difference to the national roll out is the gold standard of connecting the fibre optic cable directly to the premises. Gigaclear's symmetrical service allows VOIP to be used to provide standard telephony obviating the need for line rental.
More information including pricing for their current product can be found at the companies website
Installation details for their services are from
As further information becomes available it will be published here.
We are expecting to hear more from Openreach about GAP funding by the end of August.
May Update - Gap Funding
As a result of the public meeting the Gap funded option offered by Openreach to bring the national roll-out of Superfast Broadband to the cabinet footprint is being pursued. More information on how this works is available
here
After lengthy discussion and a detailed meeting with the Openreach engineers, we have been given an outline of a bespoke network configuration that addresses the local problems and provides a broadband service that will be at the national network standard. Importantly it means that the solution will be at the FTTC (Fibre Optic to the local cabinet) level as a minimum. This ensures a future-proof network with the capability for more connections and increased speed and bandwidth.
Using Openreach
provides open access to the local infrastructure for all service providers. This means that
for Superfast broadband the end user can choose the
service provider that meets their particular needs. An indicative list is available here.
The next step will be a detailed survey of the area by Openreach that should be finished by mid July. You can expect to see the survey teams in the area where they will be looking to validate their assumptions on what is actually in the ground and exactly what needs to be done. This will provide an analysis of the achievable speeds at the premises level as well as a final costing.
Meeting
More than 120 people attended the meeting and the mood and general concern was clearly conveyed to the BT, Fastershire and Gloucestershire CC representatives who attended.
Exactly what is proposed for this area is unclear as are the time lines. We do know this area is no longer part of the national Openreach FTTC/P roll-out.
**Update. Three companies have tendered for the alternative delivery in the Cotswolds to be announced in June
Précis of the Meeting |
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124 members of the public were in attendance. Apologies were received from: Presentations regarding the current status of the supply of superfast broadband to Temple Guiting & Guiting Power parishes were given by BT & Fastershire. A question & answer session followed, this is a summary of discussions: As confirmed in an email dated 27th Jan 2015, the Guiting Power exchange has recently been fibre enabled however the local cabinet (known as Cabinet No: 2) has not been included in the upgrade. It is unlikely that BT Openreach will participate in the tender. Premises that miss out in the tender will have to apply for individual funding against a “needs” criterion that is not yet specified. A time frame for this process is not yet known, however it was stated that, even at that final stage, there is currently not enough funding to provide superfast broadband for everyone. A low speed broadband service will be available by the end of 2015. This will probably delivered by satellite. Specific details and pricing are not yet known but it was stated that, while Openreach would provide the connection, satellite costs would have to be met by the end users. A community project, working in partnership with BT, could potentially bring SuperFast FTTC/P fibre broadband to the area. This would involve a survey by BT to supply a quote for the work and then the community would raise a contribution towards the cost. This may be through donations and fund‐raising. We would look to recover the government subsidies into the community project. Follow up action: - Fastershire to advise the organisers of the outcome of the current tender process asap. |
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Stanton Exchange |
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The majority of Guiting Power and Temple Guiting are served by Cabinet 2 on the Guiting Power exchange. However the area north of Temple Guiting is served by Cabinet 1 on the Stanton exchange. This area is not part of the separate tender (see the map here). Fastershire have now advised: "..I can say that Stanton is in Area 9 of the project....and this area is due to start work proper at the end of this month (March). Work is expected to finish in Area 9 by the end of the year. As we are still in the planning stages, the current forecast for Stanton is merely ‘2015’, but this will change once work has progressed in the area, most likely around the beginning of the next quarter. As mentioned last night I can’t provide any details relating to the cabinet in that area of Temple Guiting that is served by Stanton. However, once Stanton goes live (i.e. when the first fibre connections have been enabled) I’ll be able to look in more detail at what is happening from that exchange." |
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Other ItemsThere is an old (and quite slow) fibre connection to Temple Guiting School, however it is probably not usable by Openreach and the state of the broadband is also an issue for the school. (*Openreach will fully investigate the duct and cable as part of the Gap funded proposal. It appears that the cable probably goes to SSGPR exchange and may be usable). A further question was put on notice to Fastershire to try and ascertain the technology which is under consideration for use in the Cotswolds.... |