I have for a long time been 'concerned' about the accuracy of data provided to the schemes since incorrect figures will distort the roll-out priorities. I have downloaded the latest speed figures for UK postcodes from OfCom. These will probably be the 'backbone' of the planning for upgrading broadband speeds in West Sussex. My postcode (RH20 2NJ) is shown as having an 'average' of 4mb and a 'top' speed of 21mb! I just do not believe ANYONE here can be receiving 21mb. If anyone has time in this postcode I would appreciate an email/contact telling me what your 'Sync' speed is (that's at the router). Normally you can access this information via the router control panel.

FOOTNOTE: The whole issue of the way the government have progressed the plan to improve broadband is under scrutiny at present at the NAO and by the PAC, including the expenditure of around £10 million on 'consultants' etc to provide a system which in the opinion of many, including me, is not sufficiently 'future-proof' - and we will probably soon have to spend the same again, and more, of taxpayers' money on putting the distribution system into a shape for the coming years.

FOOTNOTE II (27/6/13): To make things even bleaker, HMG have just announced that the planned 'extra' spend post 2015 of £300mill from the sale of spectrum licences is now 'up to £250mill'. Probably a bit like 'up to 24mb', I fear.

FOOTNOTE III (05/07/13): Recent annoncement delays the 2015 target 'finish' for the BDUK scheme to 2017, which in true fashion will probably slip to 2018 or later. Remember by 2020 the EU 'expect' 50% of the UK to have 100mb and all to have 30mb...........the BDUK scheme is to 'guarantee' everyone has at least 2mb by 2017.

FOOTNOTE IV (28/08/13): It appears that not only is satellite broadband unusable for 'gaming', but it also renders 'voice over internet' telephony (eg Skype) unworkable, so beware before you go that way. Increasing numbers of comments from users too of 'restrictions' on speeds at 'busy' times of day dropping download speeds to 1-2mb.

FOOTNOTE V (2/09/13): Despite the assurance by DCMS minister Maria Miller that Councils should release information provided under the OMR, and that BT claimed to have no objection to this, WSCC are still refusing to provide me with the claimed broadband footprint on our exchange given to them by BT in 2012. It has also come to light that Shropshire CC's 'plan' will leave about 20% by area of the county with the 'minimum' of 2mb and that no funds exist for improvement there at present. If this is typical of County plans generally it does not bode well.

FOOTNOTE VI (18/10/13): There appears to be a gentle 'sliding' motion at government level about what you can expect. Nothing 'official', you understand, but at a recent 'Industry Day' a man from DCMS indicated that '15mb' was to be an acceptable performance for 90% of connections at peak time' (make of that what you will??), and when challenged as to how this was to be measured, he said "'As long as it feels like 15mb it will be ok" (I ask you!!). You cannot make this up, can you? This fits to some extent with Surrey County Council's scheme - a '100% at 24mb' plan - but now 'slid' down to '15mb for most'. The Ewhurst website tells us there is/was a BT fibre customer getting 1.4mb. Happy days!

FOOTNOTE VII (5/11/13): Just beginning to hear grapevine 'scuttlebutt' that the country-wide '>2mb fo all' mantra may also be 'slipping' (unofficially) into a 'best effort' scenario. If it is to be achieved it will, I think, require subsidised Satellite or wireless connections for many since the cost of re-plumbing all the rural premises onto a better supply will break the budget. Perhaps HMG will 'announce' something or perhaps they will hope you all forget.................

For your interest I have put the known cabinet locations on a Google earth map below. You will see we are pretty well served for cabinets. I do not have details for all boxes. NB None of the following is intended to suggest West Chiltington or YOUR cabinet will be enabled for fibre in this County broadband plan

• To know which cabinet is 'yours' - visit BT Wholesale Checker. If you are a BT phone customer put in your phone number. if not, your FULL ADDRESS. The page will return estimates of available broadband speeds - I suggest you ignore them as they have proved to be wildly optimistic - they offer one house in Harbolets 'up to 3.5mb' - and they can only get dial-up broadband.....! The main thing to note is at the top of the panel which will tell you which cabinet you are connected to.
• Now get out on your legs and walk from your house to your cabinet along the roads, and pace the distance. Your cable runs along the road, but not necessarily the most direct route.
• Now visit Think Broadband and check the table of speeds to 'expect' v distance from cabinet. DO REMEMBER, however, that these 'speeds' assume good copper lines to your house. A lot of the village has poor lines, patched and jointed, with aluminium sections instead of copper. These lines are reckoned to degrade the speeds available by 50% or more.

What you can see from the map is that distances to most properties are probably less than 1km from a cabinet. This however assumes a few things:-

• All properties are connected to their 'nearest' cabinet
• All lines take the most direct route
• BT will 'upgrade' the West Chiltington exchange
• If they do, they will upgrade YOUR cabinet

Based on these facts, it would seem that most of the Common would be able to get close to >24mb ('Super-fast' as defined by HMG) with a fair wind. Some may get nearer to 'real' super-fast (>30mb as defined by the EC).

The 'old' village will fare less well, if at all. I have only so far been able to find 3 cabinets, one opposite the Queen's Head (No. 1), one at the meet of Haglands and Lordings and one at the top of Sinnocks. Unfortunately Cabinet 1 serves properties right out onto Harbolets Road. Broadband at 1mb seems to 'fade' around Badgers Wood Stud, and there is no way 'superfast' will get further than 1km from both cabinets. There is also the question as to whether WSCC/BT will judge the interest sufficient to justify running fibre into the old village at all. Some of you will know that there is rumoured to be BT fibre running up Church Street to feed the school circuit, but this is not proven and it may just be copper. The only fibre that I know of for sure is the inter-exchange fibre that runs up Harborough Hill to the Haglands cross-roads and then into Storrington.

As I have posted elsewhere, WSCC are expected to start releasing details of areas of planned intervention in Spring 2014, so we will soon know.

FOOTNOTE VIII (7/11/13): A slightly more 'official' piece of 'scuttlebutt' comes now from the Broadband Stakeholders Group' - yes, one of those quangos dear Dave promised he would decimate (remember?) - which is proclaiming that "19mb will be enough in 2023". Those of you who's eyes have not glazed over completely will possibly remember something about "superfast broadband for 90% by 2015" and the more alert of you will recall that the EU consider 100% should have 30mb by 2020 and at least 50% 100mb. To paraphrase an RAF 'saying', "Even Tory MPs are so stupid the others have noticed". Not just Labour and Liberals are questioning the way the government has handled the broadband plan, but now 3 Conservative MPs have raised their heads to complain about the way HMG is wasting our money. There are now reports of wide-spread and growing anger with the politicians, civil servants and operators responsible for the UK’s next generation broadband programme, especially in rural areas. Some of you will recall that I spent several days putting together a bid for part of the £20million RCBF fund designed to help the '10%' (rural areas mainly) that would not see superfast broadband. I eventually gave up, partly due to lack of interest around here but also because I could not establish that we would NOT get superfast broadband, due to restrictions placed on WSCC by BT in telling us which postcodes would be 'done'. Eventually, with a nudge from various sources, BT were forced to say (publicly) that it was 'OK' to release the information and Maria Miller, the broadband minister wrote to Councils to ask them to release this information so we could all get on and plan. WSCC have 'declined' to release the information. They, like most other councils, are concerned that BT will bring an action against them for release of 'commercially sensitive' information. The net result of this is that since no 'alternative' broadband schemes can establish whether or not they will be 'over-built' by BT, only one or two have been brave enough to go ahead, and those are WITHOUT the RCBF funding, since they cannot fulfill the stated requirements of the fund in terms of assurance that they will not be in a 'BT' area. Additionally, outside investors in these schems are holding back for the same reasons. The fund 'closes' soon and it will fall fallow. It looks as if none will be allocated. We suspect the money will probably find its way into BT's profits and pension fund. Oh! Did I mention that 'learned opinion' now thinks it will be 2017 before the '2mb' committment is met?

UPDATE (14/11/2013): It is now confirmed by BT that despite the head of BT telling the PAC that is was 'ok' for Councils to release the data, and the minister, Maria Miller writing to all LAs asking them to do so, BT are now saying it is not ok for 'commercial reasons'. It should be borne in mind that there is NO competition at all for BT in the BDUK contract arena, so where the 'commercial reasons' lie I know not. Anyway, the net result is that rather cleverly BT have now killed the £20 million RCBF fund and it will now almost certainly fall into BT's pocket. Nice one!

UPDATE (29/12/2013): It now appears to be 'official' (via the Parish Council and Nick Herbert in Sussex Local (thanks Village Nurseries for the heads-up) that our exchange WILL be in the first tranche of exchanges to be surveyed by BT 'in the spring'. The purpose of the 'survey' is to establish the telephone 'assets' in terms of cabinets, who is connected where -line lengths, etc (which they should, of course, know!) AND whether there is likely to be a reasonable uptake of the service to balance the costs of provision. Remember, nothing is guaranteed, and many will not be able to get the 24mb+ if and when both the exchange upgrade and the new cabinets are to be completed, but at worst we will find out early how we stand. WSCC and BT need to work out how best to 'spend' the £12.6million in terms of 'value for money' for the County residents.

UPDATE (15/1/2014): Some of you will recall the 'Race To Infinity' BT ran a while back, where 10 'lucky winning' locations were slated to get 'FTTP'. It is now apparent that several of the 'winners' have not seen the project completed and several are quite unclear as to what it actually means in terms of properties to be 'done'. I'm somewhat relieved we didn't 'win'! Furthermore, you wll know I have repeatedly warned about getting too excited about the BT roll-out of fibre and against expecting too much. There is an excellent blog - BrOken TelephOn3 - to which I subscribe - which is constantly lifting the lid on what is going on. In Ian Grant's latest offering he publishes a 'view' from one of the areas supposedly 'benefitting' from BT's FTTP (just 'up the road' in fact). It is a bit of an eye-opener and worth reading

UPDATE (19/1/2014): My apologies for my mis-understanding. I was presented recently with what was suggested was a 'new' press release from BT about our exchange. It did not make a lot of sense, but since I could not establish a date of release for it from the internet, I assumed it was current. My thanks to Peter at the Village Nurseries for his detective work in establishing that the release date was in fact May 2012 and did in fact refer to the upgrade of our exchange to ADSL2, delivering 'up to 20mb'.

The situation is, as I thought, that we are still awaiting some sort of 'survey' by BT in 'the Spring' to determine what, if anything, we get in the way of fibre under the BDUK scheme. Sorry for the confusion!

UPDATE (26/1/2014): Thanks to a sharp-eyed resident we have the welcome information that our 'exchange' is to be upgraded to fibre in 'June 2014'. Presumably this means the BT survey is done. This is not a great leap of advancement since the bulding itself (Storrington exchange) has been 'fibred' now for several months. It means that our part of the exchange equipment will also now be upgraded. The next important steps will be to watch to see which new cabinets are to be built near the existing cabinets,and, of course, how many connection options BT provide at each cabinet. Only when this is known will we be able to see who will get the option for FTTC. A reminder from my other page that you need to watch the BT Wholesale Checker to see about the availability of broadband on your own number. Once it is announced as 'available to order' you will be able to place an order, and the number of cabinet connection options to be installed will almost certainly hinge on the response for each cabinet. Be aware that if demand exceeds the connections options it may well be quite some time, if ever, that BT put another card in the new cabinet to provide the extra conections to fibre. You will also get a clue from any announced 'roadworks' on the County site. Be aware also that the June date is quite likley to slip, as other dates elsewehere have. I expect to see all of you out and about now pacing out the distance from your property to your cabinet............

Remember also that your choice of supplier will not remain as only BT - there will be other providers coming along as time goes by.

I have been receiving some enquiries from eagle-eyed residents who have noted the on-going and planned road works in West Chiltington and Thakeham and a froth of excitement has appeared. I have to dampen this a little and say that as far as I know this is a mixture of maintenance work and connection of new supplies to schools. There is an established series of works required for BT to provide a fibre service to an area. Firstly the exchange needs to be fitted with the necessary equipment. This, we are told, is planned for June 2014. Either with or after this, BT need to build the new fibre cabinets - these are slightly larger than the existing 'old' green cabinets and are normally within 50m of these. The new cabinets require a power supply (the 'old' ones run on the BT telephone voltage of 50volts). The power supply to some extent dictates the position of the new cabinets. They can be on a grass verge, on a pavement or up against some lucky person's boundary. Planning permission is NOT required for the installation of these by BT unless the area is a conservation area, in which case there will be a planning application at District. The next visible indication will be the notificastion of road and pavement works to allow the electricity supply to be fed and for the cabinets to be built. Once these are in place, a trench is dug from the 'new' to the 'old' to allow connection to the rotting copper lines we all have. As you can see, there should be plenty of advance notice of anything actually happening here. I am hoping that either BT or WSCC will let me know any relevant dates/activities and they may even specify which cabinets are to be 'done' although based on the nonsense over 'confidentiality' caused by BT over the whole scheme I am not optimistic. Based on what we have seen elsewhere, even the building/digging/connection process for the new cabinet etc does NOT mean the service will start. On some exchanges, cabinets have taken up to 2 years to 'go live'. A good indication of a 'coming' service is the sound of fans running inside the new cabinets to cool the equipment.

I would appreciate any 'sightings' of activity, please - don't be worried about generating false hopes - all the information is useful and goes to complete the jigsaw.

UPDATE (10/2/2014): WSCC are 'preparing' an update on their broadband news page. It looks as the Phase 1 surveys should be complete by end April and then the decisions on what is to be done will be taken. Where we sit in the survey chain cannot be divulged. It is expected that WSCC will write to the P Council when they have decided. We MAY see the first cabinets installed 'mid-year'. For those poor folk suffering from really slow broadband (sub 2mb, dial-up etc) the wait could be significantly longer - 2016 possibly. I have re-stated your plight with the County! At this time no-one in BT appears to know how they are going to tackle your lines.

Do 'watch this space'. The contractors will be 'Morrison's I gather, not BT Openreach and if you see them and ask for 'details' expect to be handed a postcard directing you the the County website.......................

UPDATE (11/2/2014): Talking of the WSCC website, hot on the heels of my enquiry about an update - there it is. An 'interactive map' shows nearly all local exchanges expect you to be able to 'order' HSB after April. To get there, visit this page, click on the right-hand link 'Check Availability" and again on the right-hand 'Interactive Map". PLEASE remember my caveat that is does NOT mean you will be able to get it at your property. Even the 'interactive map' carries the words
"In some exchange areas not every cabinet can be upgraded. Cabinets going live will do so at different times."

As you should all know, I am in close touch with the Ewhurst brigade, who initially had a BT 'commercial' roll-out (you may recall how that and Surrey County Council destroyed the community's original SEEDA-funded 2011 plans for a really high-speed network) and now have Surrey County Council's (BDUK -based) publicly funded roll-out. Of particular relevance to what may happen here is the following letter sent recently to SCC about the way the funding is proceding and will proceed. It is vital that local authorities ensure that BT do not 'mark up' project costs NOR creep their own maintenace and repair work into the public purse, which possibly needs to be watched in Coldwaltham at the moment. (Some of you may recall the fuss created by Mike Kiely's papers on the way BT were adding to project costs in some areas). I have emailed WSCC about this. Anyway, here is the letter to SCC. One of the areas of concern is that it appears that BT are provisioning availablilty of around 20-30% of the connected lines for each fibre cabinet - a not unreasonable stab at the likely take-up - BUT the question is, when demand eventually exceeds this provision, where is the money coming from? For example, BT, in some densely populated areas, are installing fibre cabinets with a max capacity of 288 lines, where around 600 customers may be connected. BT are reportedly 'pulling through' only 100 lines to enable connection (viz '20-30%') and in fact to offer capacity to many more than 100 of the 600 customers will require not only more line ducting to the fibre cabinet, but in fact one OR MORE extra cabinets in place, since it appears 288 is the absolute maximum capacity for a cabinet. I will follow the progress of this enquiry.

UPDATE (12/2/2014): I have seen the subsequent email rally with SCC over this, but I don't think it is in the public domain (yet!) As expected, it raises signifcant and worrying questions over the whole government scheme. The figure of around 33% availability has been in the BT commercial roll-out for several years. We now face the Local Authority stated targets of 90% or more. We need to look more closely at the 'figures'. For a few years I and others have been trying to establish EXACTLY what BT mean when they bandy around to the gullible public "60,000 more homes passed by fibre last month". It appears that to be 'passed' you need to be connected to an OLD cabinet which has a nearby fibre twin OR to have an FTTP fibre dug into your road. It does NOT mean you can get a fibre connection for the reasons given before. The question now, for all parts of the UK, the Westminster PAC and you the taxpayer, is that is the stated 90% plus figure going to be real or imagined, and will there be a 'Nelson's Eye' at County level ("Hope no-one asks....")? The response from SCC indicates that without further public spend, further connections above the initial 33% or so will have to be provided by BT as a 'commercial' move ie far from guaranteed. Questions we should all be watching? It is, after all, our Council and Income Tax that is being spent here.

The message is clear - if/when your cabinet is fibred AND you have looked at what would be available, get your order in PDQ or you may never get it! Let's say your cabinet feeds 200 homes. BT/WSCC look as if they will provision about 33% connections (one or two cabinet 'cards' depending on type and 100 tie-lines pulled through). NB All guess-work! The other 66% of properties................? As far as I can ascertain, depending on the card manufacturer BT use, the cabinet connection capacity goes 96, 128, 256 to a max of 288 connections (with, say, 400 connections another attractive green box would be needed...). To know which we get will require interested parties to 'snap' pics of the new cabinets with doors open and send them to me, when my gurus will analyse them for me.

UPDATE (13/2/2014): Having spoken to someone from Coldwaltham it looks very much as if those properties in the 'estates' on the south-east of the A29 will be provided with FTTP from the Pulborough exchange. What the take-up will be at the higher contract price is anyone's guess. West Chiltington and Thakeham remain planned for FTTC giving UP TO 76mb depending on line lengths.

UPDATE (25/2/2014): The latest allocation of funding from the government to LAs has reached the media. Sadly WSCC and East Sussex get well under a £million whereas some LAs are getting several £million - eg Devon and Somerset at £22million+. I thus do not expect a big change here!

UPDATE (26/2/2014): Well, hot on the heels of yesterday the 'unofficial' word (from a chat with OpenReach guys today) is that they are surveying the fibre nodes and fibre runs in the village with a view to organising 'roadworks' for the running of the necessary fibre from the fibre nodes to new cabinets. It looks as if all our cabinets will be made FTTC, including Cab 1 by the Queen's Head. They said this last one will entail work along Mill Road and up the Hollows which should be interesting to say the least. It is at present unknown what the capacity of each cabinet will be, so my comments earlier about keeping your eye on availability and 'getting in quickly' still stand.

We are still some way off seeing cabinets installed and the clues will come up initially through planned roadworks which I know Peter at the Village Nursery is keeping a keen eye on....! So, a better rumour than the one I had anticipated.

UPDATE (3/3/2014): Roadworks are planned for mid-March to install new Cabinets at positions 2,4,5,6,7 and 8. Cab 1 (the Queen's Head) was also scheduled but has 'disappeared'. This may be due to the need to schedule roadworks in line with other utilities. NOTE this does NOT mean you will be getting anything from these cabinets until the exchange AND the fibre runs are in place AND the cabinets powered. I do know that the fibre node opposite Foxfields will be used as a source for much of the work in the Common.

UPDATE (10/3/2014): Thanks again to Peter Mansfield, we note that trenching for cabling is scheduled for Cabinet 1 early April.

UPDATE (15/3/2014): Cabinet 3(fibre) on Common Hill is in place and I understand work is starting on Cabinet 2(fibre) on Mill Road (CORRECTION: I guess the information I received was wrong as there is no sign yet of work there). To calm the froth of excitement I must remind you all that the exchange part of the upgrade is still scheduled for June and you need to listen carefully at the grilles on the new Cabinets to see if you can hear the cooling fans running. If not, the Cabinet is not 'live'. So, if you see the 'odd' person crouched over a large green box in the village, that is probably what they are doing!

UPDATE (24/3/2014):The county map indicates that you can expect to be able to place an 'order' in 'April' so keep your eyes on the BT availability checker if you want some of it!

COMMENT (31/3/2014): Work appears to be proceeding as advertised, with the contractor, Morrisons, doing the 'spade work' in advance of Openreach or another contractor actually wiring up as orders come in. Still absent is Cabinet1 by the Queen's Head and I expect the many of you who feed from that cabinet to be asking County what is/when is it/ going to happen, as if it is not done, there will be a huge 'black hole' in the coverage. I cannot believe it is not to be done, although many regions have seen incomplete 'cabinetisation'(!!), but as I said earlier, it 'appeared' as a job a while back and then disappeared.

UPDATE (01//04/2014): News that Cabinet 1 will start 2 April.

I have now learned that access to the left-hand side of the new Cabinets (where the mains voltage is) is for 'BT Operate' staff only, not BT OpenReach so you need now to 'spot' their Mauve/purple coloured vans to see the next stage of the process.

UPDATE (09/04/2014): Hot on the heels of my comments above on 'real' capacity, and to add to my concerns that WSCC is really keeping its eye on the BT ball, comes this from one of my contacts in a nearby exchange, with particular relevance to our Cabinet 6 'fibre twin 288 capacity':

"I was examining the cabinet at site this afternoon when, by great good fortune, a BT engineer arrived to do the first 3 monthly test of the circuit breaker. That allowed me to see inside the locked cabinet where the Huawei 288 equipment currently only has one 48 port line card and only one 100 pair tie cable set installed. It seems unfortunate that BT have to take a whole month just to supply and fit one printed circuit card. Of more concern is the time it will take next time, assuming BT have sufficient Operating Expense funds, possibly after another three months to install at least one more set of tie cables as well as the third card.

Note that our Cabinet 6 is also a Huawei 288 and to provide 288 actual connection options it requires 6 x 48 port cards fitted PLUS sufficient tielines to the old cabinet. What I think is becoming quite important is to find out how many 'bangs for our bucks' we are getting out of the BT contract. To this end, should you happen to find a BT engineer kneeling in front of an open cabinet, please ask him how many cards and tielines are in it, and if possible, take a picture of the inside bits for me.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY (13/04/2014): It is worth remembering that the money being spent on the BDUK roll-out of 'High Speed Broadband' (HSB) is not a generous gift from Boy George nor from Call me Dave, but it is your money and my money, paid in income tax, Council tax, fuel duty, TV licences and heaven knows what else. As such it must be important to see that we all get as much 'value for money' as possible, just as with any other 'purchase' we might make. To this end, let's look at Cabinet 6 - I still await a response from County as to what is actually going to happen inside it, but if we assume there are, say 300 telephone connections on it, and we know BT charge upwards of £30,000 to the Councils per cabinet, this represents a spend of £100 or more per household IF we get 300 HSB connections. If, however, the example in my previous paragraph happens and only one 48 port card and a 100 pair tieline goes in, this represents a spend of around £600 per household, and would be in order that 48 lucky folk out of the 300 were able to get this HSB. This does not represent 'value for money' in my book. SO it is important that we see what is being done with our money, I think you will agree?

We still have this conundrum as to how '98% of premises' will have access to HSB from the spend when it looks as if generally only 20% or so of customers will be supplied under this scheme. Many of us have, for a long time, challenged BT's favourite statistic of 'homes passed by HSB' when it appears they count a 'home passed' as being connected to a cabinet which has a fibre twin, regardless of whether or not the 'home passed' can get HSB either through capacity limitations or simply distance from the cabinet.

'Value for money' was stressed repeatedly at the various meetings I attended at County and the County say they are keeping a close eye on this. If, however, as the scheme progresses, any of you feel you are not getting value for your money spent, you should take the matter up with someone. The Parish Council are very much passengers in all this, so it will need to be Nick Herbert or County itself if you wish to progress the matter.

UPDATE (17/04/2014): After Easter there are expected to be just 7 working days at County Hall before this exchange is expected to be accepting orders for HSB - based on what WSCC tells us on its website. I am pressing WSCC for more information especially since they are hinting that our 'slow' connections (sub 2mb) will probably need to go wireless for broadband but I see signifcant problems there. I await responses. It is pertinent now to remind you all of how to check what you might expect. NB - as of today, Thursday 17th April, nothing yet shows - as expected.

This is what you need to do:

UPDATE (21/04/2014): The latest information reaching me 'from elsewhere' is that our money (which is being spent by LAs on the BDUK scheme) is in most cases buying only the 20% (minimum) connection rate. For those interested, this is what I am told:

Cabinets are either Huawei or ECI. Huawei are either 288 or 128 capacity (depending on cabinet height). The 288 uses 48 port cards, so needs 6 for full capacity. The 128 uses 32 port cards, thus needs 4, while the (larger) 256 capacity ECI cabinets use 64 port cards and thus also need 4. I therefore make the minimum number of lines to expect in each cabinet to be 48, 32 and 64 - NOTE: all over "20%". I await some information post-Easter from WSCC as to what we can expect here on our exchange, but beware - if you 'miss out' on the first 20%'ish options you may have a significant wait to get one if WSCC have 'spent' all the available cash for West Chiltington. What happens to the remaining 75% plus hopefuls in the 'promised land' I know not. Here's hoping WSCC come up with better news for us.

UPDATE (25/04/2014): Good to see that WSCC have responded, and I will post their email almost verbatim here for you. There is a message in it for those who want HSB and I have highlighted the particularly relevant parts

...the financial model chosen to develop the broadband programme is a gap-funding model. Therefore the public funding is used as leverage to make the greater coverage of broadband services in the county commercially viable by suppliers.

In this context 20% take up by customers is the point at which BT says it becomes commercially viable for them to invest in providing more infrastructure. Therefore we expect all of the cabinets being enabled by the project to go live with a minimum of 20% of capacity available to be purchased. Any additional hardware will be installed by Openreach as and when demand determines it is necessary. If, as you are suspecting take up at West Chiltington cabinet 6 will be greater than 20% can I ask you to direct people to register interest here - Click on 'Check availability', click on 'Register your interest'. We will then have an effective demonstration of demand to present to Openreach to increase capacity upon going live as current registrations from West Chiltington are currently only demonstrating 3% interest.

Openreach tell us that they expect the West Chiltington cabinets to be ready for service in May, and as I am sure you know there is usually a two week wait for ISPs to get set up to offer connection packages to customers. We are not made aware of when ISPs do this so are not able to give parish councils a specific 'go live' date but will be updating the website to show that services are available and will be alerting parish councils to this and to advise people to contact their ISP for information.

So, there you are - it looks as if the above figures (21/04) are what to expect, between 20 and 25% provision. It is, undoubtably, worth noting that we are indeed fortunate that all 8 of our cabinets on this exchange are being upgraded. A 3% 'interest' will easily be satisfied by the County roll-out, but obviously does not stimulate here the "90%+" availability promised across the County in the 'PR'. As you can see, to get to this figure will require BT to assess sufficient 'commercial advantage' here, which can take a year or more depending on budget. It is in your court, folks. If you have not done so, I suggest you do 'register' to try and get BT 'motivated' sooner rather than later.

On the matter of a 'wireless connection', the County were apparently told by Kijoma that they either had covered or planned to cover this area by 2016. If that proves to be wrong............... It might be of interest for those sub 2mb'ers - Goose Green, Harbolets, Broadford Bridge, ??Nutbourne?? etc to make some enquiries of Kijoma as to availability to test the water since you will almost certainly not see any HSB. I (and the County) would be interested in the response.

Some of you on the slower connections may be quietly 'confident' that the provison of fibre to the cabinets will result in better speeds for you - this will NOT be the case. The fibre-ing of an exchange does NOT result in a general speed increase. If this is not understood, I can expand on the topic.

On that note, I would remind you all that the phrase I am hearing more and more is 'Fibre Broadband' - this is NOT 'Fibre' broadband - it is 'Copper' broadband. For many years now, broadband has reached you via your copper and aluminium telephone lines, having 'arrived' at the exchange by fibre. What this system does is to effectively 'move' the exchange nearer to us all via the new fibre-fed cabinets, but it still suffers the previous problems of poor and long lines and does little for them. Do not be fooled into believing this is 'Fibre Broadband'. That is pure 'spin'. True 'Fibre Broadband' is that which reaches you ON FIBRE and we should all, government, County and you, be looking now at getting to that stage, since the internet world is getting very close to needing 100mb downloads, and 20+mb uploads at least - and the current 'BT Infinity' will not produce these speeds without significant overhaul. Sadly there is no indication of any thought processes where it matters on this.

More food for thought - idle musing on the costs of the scheme as per my previous - it is thought that the cost to the LAs is around £30,000 per cabinet. There will be significant extra costs levied by BT in management costs, survey costs and there is the lingering suspicion raised by Mike Keely some time back that they were 'loading' the contracts with other 'costs' including costs outside the scheme. However, we will probably never know in view of the secrecy BT have insisted on - a FOI request might go some way, but probably not. So, working ONLY on the cabinet costs, we are looking at a minimum of 8x£30,00 on this exchange - £240,000 of your and my money paid in various taxes, levies etc over the years. If we take that across the 2048 'customers' in WC, Thakeham, Nutbourne etc we see we - that is you and I - will have subsidised the scheme by a minimum of around £117 per 'customer'. Now, if we assume that the figure of 20-25% 'available' lines across the exchange area is correct - which looks likely - our funding goes up to around £400-£470 per line. Looking at Cabinet 6, which would appear to be getting an initial 48 lines provided, those of us connected to it have provided £625 per line. If we remain at this amazing "3%" take-up rate across the whole exchange area (that would be 62 HSB lines), our generosity per existing telephone customer increases to £3870 for each new lucky HSB customer. Happy? Remember these figures are minimums and are based solely on the known costs uncovered in other parts of the UK.

UPDATE (20/05/2014): Latest estimate for us is now 'End of June' from the County map. Fittleworth is in the process of 'going live'. I am a little disappointed that County has not managed to update its 'News' from March since we are coming to the end of a broadband 'busy' May already. My spies tell me that the tie-lines have been blown in for Cabinet 6, but that the friendly OR man said he thought the old PCP 6 was 'not big enough' and would need to be replaced, which could slow things down a bit.

UPDATE (23/05/2014): Broadband News now updated on the WSCC website! It is noted that work on the fibre run to Cabinet1 by the Queen's Head has again 'disappeared' from the roadworks maps. My feeling is that implementation of HSB for all those on this cabinet is going to be a bit later than the rest of the area. How much later I know not - a BT engineer said in passing "you'll be lucky to see that by Christmas'. MY suspicion (based purely on a 'feeling in the water') is that preliminary investigation of the state of the telephone cabling/ducting along Mill Road and up the Hollows has shown that much work is needed to repair/clear/replace as appropriate which affects the budget. Again - hoping I am wrong! The situation should become clearer as we move towards the end of June when the exchange and cabinets are forecast to 'go live'.

UPDATE (27/05/2014): By a rather circuitous route I have obtained a paper which has information from BT OpenReach on the 'gubbins' in two of the FTTC cabinets. For any 'anoraks' here, these images show the interiors of the ECI M41 (a 256 [4 x 64] line cabinet) and the Huawei MA5603T (288 line [6 x 48] cabinet - as per our cabinet6)

.
Should you happen upon one of these with the doors open you will be able to comment knowledgeably on what you see. Remember we only expect one card to be fitted in each cabinet. The information I have is that an extra card is 'triggered' when utilisation reaches 75% on the existing card, eg for the Huawei (Cabinet6) when there are more than 36 connections. With the reported "3% interest" on this exchange (I'm really hopng that will increase after all the effort!!) that will take some time......

UPDATE (12/6/2014): Now that June is well and truly upon us, the latest estimate for us is now 'July' from the County map. Let's hope the 'not unknown' BT game of delaying a month every month is not in play....(but see next update...). Some areas involved in the BT commercial roll-out have/had waited over a year this way. There is talk of 'looking into' exchange only lines and FTTP application although I cannot see how we have any exchange only lines out here? Still no sign of Cabinet1 work.

UPDATE (17/6/2014): Thanks to my eagle-eyed spy, Peter Manfield, we now see that Cabinets 4 (by Nisa stores) and 8 (Common Hill) are showing availability. I don't think the cabinets or exchange are 'live' yet but anyone interested might be able to can now place an order. PS: First order of which I am aware (non-BT) has been given an install date of 25th June! Cabinet1 now getting some attention early July.

UPDATE (19/6/2014): More village cabinets are showing potential HSB speeds when you check your property. DO remember the 'availability' is NOT complete until the cabinets have cards fitted, you can hear them 'humming' AND the exchange is updated to VDSL. The BT exchange map still shows 'Coming Soon', not 'Accepting Orders' so we are not there yet.

UPDATE (20/6/2014): As more of you are placing orders and getting 'install dates' in early July I would caution against too much excitement about the '78mb' speeds you may see on the checker. There is a caveat there that says 'subject to x, y and z' - remember you need to be practically sitting on top of the cabinet to see 78mb. Things that will happen are:
1) You may well not get what you expect dure to your line condition, along the road and in your house
2) DLM will take place over the first 20 days or so and your speed will almost certainly drop
3) As more consumers join, 'cross-talk' (a fancy name for interference) may well limit your line performance

UPDATE (26/6/2014): Helpful update from WSCC as below:

• Cabinets 3, 4, 7 and 8 are now live and taking orders.
• Cabinets 2, 5 and 6 are expected to be live and taking orders mid July.
• Cabinet 1 currently requires new duct to be laid to connect it. This work is scheduled to begin on Tuesday 1 July. We expect that it will be live and taking orders at the end of July.
• We will of course be monitoring the situation regarding those premises which are not able to directly benefit from the upgrades to the cabinets, and which remain with a service that is less than 2 Mbps.

UPDATE (30/6/2014): All cabinets bar Cabinet1 are now 'live' and accepting orders. Cab1 is apparently held back due to traffic management issues for the road works. The County are putting out a general press release today.

I have just started to look at fibre options, and it seems 'PlusNet' are coming out pretty well on both pricing and customer support. TalkTalk were cheaper for the 38mb package but are only offering a miserable 1.9mb upload speed compared to around 20 with PlusNet. Shop around! BT, of course, are not the only fruit. You may find many providers are not showing us as 'fibre capable' yet since they are cautious and may well be waiting to see 'proof of the BT pudding', so you may need to wait for the best packages.

UPDATE (2/7/2014): With remarkable impetus, one of our residents was connected yesterday - yes, 1st July! Sadly, being at 1.8km from his cabinet, the delivered speed is poor and worse even than my estimate and far below BT's which was 13.8mb (but 4.9 for 'bad lines'). 4.5mb is appalling. The most probable cause is the quality of his phone lines and this will be a consideration throughout the village. It behoves all to be cautious. I have said before - do NOT trust the BT estimates. Sadly another 'failure' - a line at 1km from a fibre cabinet (should get around 20mb by my reckoning, although good ol' BT say '52-80' bless 'em) is getting 4. Line quality is probably the biggest problem as I forecast, but appears to be worse than even I thought. Upload speeds are very poor. I hope no-one is seduced by the BT BS - I do suggest that if you are going to take the product you shoot for a 38 or 40mb contract - you can always increase.

UPDATE (6/7/2014): One positive from an email I have received - another 'plus' for plusnet - I hear good things about them:

"I got the fttc connected around 9am on 1 July(first on cab 3) with plusnet. I live on xxxxx and estimated that the distance to cab 3 was around 700m (this would give a theoretical speed of 40mb). Anyway the initial 'fibre' speed tests yielded only 4mb download. After a bit of research I realised that the bt modem connects automatically, once I had updated the plusnet website to use the auto setup. It has to be automatic as there is no way to access the modems settings unless it is hacked.
Once this was done the speed rose to 12.3mb (still not good). I then contacted plus-net to register a fault on the line as we were originally getting 4.5mb on adsl. To my surprise the Open-reach engineer arrived within half an hour. He found a small wiring fault in the external bt wiring at the side of the house and detected a dc voltage on the line which he managed to remove at the cabinet. After he had done the work, the sync rate rose from 13mb to 26mb. I was quite happy with this as he said that I was actually 1.2km from the cabinet!
Retested the speed and was disappointed to see it remain at 12.3mb. I then did a speed test on speedtest.btwholesale.com and went for the 'further tests' option which display your sync range and it is this data that is passed to the isps to cap the line rate. I called plus-net and told them that the line had been repaired. They instantly raised the cap from 12.3mb to 40mb. The speed-test now gives 26/5.5. I am pleased with this rate although you have stick with it!
The Open-reach engineer also said that the telephone lines in WC are pretty good quality, so if anyone is getting an abnormally low speed there steps that can be taken!
My opinion of bt/plusnet & openreach is they are all quite fantastic."

UPDATE (11/7/2014): Information I am getting from the 'longer lines' folk is that the speeds are disappointing, and it appears that these lines all pass through 'mini cabinets' on their way from FTTC cabinet to customer and it may be that this step is what is causing the loss of speeds. It also seems as if these 'mini cabs' are often difficult to see and buried in undergrowth - other than the one at the top of Lordings Lane I did not know about them.

I have been in touch with the broadband team at County who are aware of the issues and they have advised me that their current advice is "We're advising anyone not seeing fast speeds to contact their internet service provider in the first instance as it is the ISP who can then action Openreach to send an engineer out to investigate further."

This will be a 'variable feast' indeed, since while the better ISPs indeed will, the others probably will not. One ISP of which I know, Andrews and Arnold, are doing an amazing job at trying to improve their customer's speeds.

UPDATE (27/7/2014): Steady progress for those wishing (and able!) to take a service. I am compiling a 'how-goze-it' spreadsheet here to show how things are going. I am totally reliant on inputs here, but what it is showing is that at around 1000m from a cabinet the performance is poor and on current figures, it is not worth paying the extra for an FTTC connection at that distance unless you are absolutely desperate for a higher speed.