UPDATE - Superfast Fibre Broadband Project for Throwley

Project update

I submitted to Openreach the list of properties for the Throwley Superfast Fibre Broadband community project last Tuesday night, 17th November. There were 92 entries, i.e. about 70% of all the properties in Throwley subscribed to the project, including Belmont House and Parsonage Farm business units. This is great result. Again, special thanks to all the “local champions” who helped with passing this message to their neighbours.

I had a conversation with the Openreach team and they are currently analysing the data and will produce a ballpark cost for the project within the next one to three weeks. Once we have the indicative costing, we will need to reach out to other premisses that would also be set to benefit, increasing the number of potential vouchers. Then, we shall discuss financial viability of the project with KCC and have a detailed consultation between ourselves whether to proceed to the next stage – official quote from Openreach.

Some statistics from first submission 17/11/2020

• 92 properties registered for the project so far.
• 54 of the registered properties are outside the area which could be reached from the fibre-enabled exchange cabinet in Throwley Forstal. There is no figure given by Openreach for the download internet speeds for these properties, but my estimate is below 3Mbps.
• There are 30 businesses on the register, out of which 21 are in the very low internet speed areas.