[Swlug] 2019 Next generation access broadband consultation opens

[Daniel Morris]

Akin to counting deck chairs on the Titanic, the Welsh Government are
again asking residents, businesses and local authorities to check the
details on record of the plans (or otherwise) for superfast
connectivity and give them feedback. Here's the link to the
consultation:

https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/consultations/2019-11/next-generation-access-broadband-consultation-document.pdf

Confusingly it says the consultation closes 12th December, but has 1700
on the 5th in s6.2.

s6.3 says how to respond (pg11) with a link to the interactive map:

http://lle.gov.wales/map/ngaomr2019

(if you get a continuous spinner then try disabling uBlock Origin in
Firefox/your browser)

The data for my home and others in the postcode looks wrong. Again it
says there are plans for us to be connected in the next three years, and
yet I got a quote from Openreach in the summer that said we'd need
£21,539 of "gap" funding to be raised by my community (Community Fibre
Partnership) to connect us to the point where Superfarce Cymru stopped
(280m of duct needed under a field and then pole-pole for the dozen
houses that get 1.9->4.8Mbps download). Openreach haven't provided a
breakdown of that cost in the six weeks since asking for it.

2km back down the FTTP installation towards the cabinet, our MP enjoys
330Mbps (up from the 16Mbps-ish he had on ADSL) with 4G at 19-24Mbps
down (18-24Mbps up!) measured on the pavement outside his home this
week. Our community sits behind the directional 4G mast that he receives
signal from. We sometimes get 4G from a mast ~12km away that faces back
towards us and sometimes we don't (highly dependent on weather).

As a bonus, our road has had multiple closures to enable BT to haul more
fibre to that 4G mast that doesn't serve us.

The whole of that FTTP install was also reworked some months after it
went live, changing the hardware to speed up connections into premises,
whilst moaning in the press that superfast takeup was slow and messing
customers about with months of cancelled appointments to make the
in-home FTTP installation. As ever BT/Openreach techies on the
ground/ladder were friendly and helpful, but the maps on their
ruggedised tablets showed there was no intention of reaching our
community.

The Welsh Government was also unable to find data for our postcode from
the 2017 OMR in the 400 days it took from an FOI request to First Tier
Tribunal seeking to get plans released by WG (ruling summary, WG give BT
£200M+ and have no rights to see planning data).

Pessimistic? Moi? At least there's only four months to join the back of
the queue under USO.

 Daniel