Yes, you have read correctly that superfast broadband has now arrived at Madingley Exchange. I would imagine that the next questions would be when did it hapen?  which village? which streets? what speed?

I was just getting started for the day when I checked my email and scanning through the list found one from a Hardwick resident, titled “BT Infinity”. On opening said email, the content brought a smile to my face and a “whoop” that said, yes, its here! The resident had ordered BT Infinity, and it has been delivered. There was also a screen shot of the results of the line speed test, which showed download speed of 31.3 Mb and upload speed of 4.8 Mb. Very cool. The download speed does correspond to what is expected from the FTTC technology.

As previously indicated, BT has installed two new fibre cabinets, one at Hardwick and one at Coton. Both of these are to provide superfast broadband to residents in those villages. In the case of Hardwick, it is not likely that the cabinet will serve all of the village, so some will be getting the service viia fibre to the premises.

Needless to say I am very pleased at this turn of events and wish the residents of Hardwick enjoyment of this new superfast broadband service.

Cabinet in Coton

Earlier today, the Madingley Exchange Race To Infinity Team received an update from BT, to inform us of the progress of the rollout of the fibre network for super fast broad band (SFBB).

The statement reads, “Thank you for forwarding the comments from your campaign team, I understand their frustration and I am happy to confirm that we have not reduced our commitment to achieving the roll-out in Madingley (100% of premises will see an increase in speed, 99.9% of premises will receive SFBB speeds of  >15Mb, 0.1% of premises will receive between 2Mb &15 Mb).  This is a major civil engineering project and sometimes projects of this complexity can take a little longer than expected depending on what we find as we do the work (which is why we haven’t been explicit about dates).”

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Not explicit about dates… that’s an understatement if ever there was one!

It further goes on to state that “The latest update is that the cabinet at the junction of Limes Road and Cambridge Road is due to go live week commencing 30th April. We hope the second cabinet will go live towards the end of May and we are on track to deliver FTTP during June ”

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The confirmation that the deployment is still aiming to get SFBB to all the premises served by Madingley Exchange is good news. It is however tempered by the sheer frustration that the team members and the rest of our communities feel at the length of time that the deployment is taking, considering that we won the race over 15 months ago.

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The frustration boiled over when Porto Novelli (PN) who ran and coordinated the Race To Infinity for BT asked the team to take part in a photo shoot last week. This was to be part of the PR exercise of announcing the arrival of SFBB. The team refused, stating that if the rollout plan had been on time, then yes, there would have been something to celebrate. We were promised SFBB in early 2012, and so far, its still a non-event. One team member said “It seems like PN and BT need to sit down and actually align commercial strategy with PR strategy“.

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So, when all is said and done, the main points to be noted are:

1. The cabinet in Hardwick at the junction of Limes Road and Cambridge Road should go live from 30th April 2012.
2. The cabinet in Coton on Cambridge Road should go live toward end of May 2012.
3. The rest of us are getting FTTP and should expect to see service at some point during June 2012.

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Infinity Bus

As for PR, discussions are ongoing to get the Infinity Bus to come to Caldecote on 7th May 2012 as part of the opening ceremony for the new Sports  Pavilion.
Anyone who wants to see what is possible with Infinity should put the date in their diaries and come check out the Infinity Bus in Caldecote.

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Average Speeds

A third of homes in the UK have broadband speeds well below the national average, according to research from price comparison site uSwitch.

While half of addresses get broadband speeds of 6.7Mbps or above, a third struggle to get speeds above 5Mbps, 1.7m speed tests found.

The East Sussex village of Winchelsea was the slowest, with an average speed of 1.1Mbps, according to uSwitch.

Hereford was the slowest city, with average speeds of 3.1Mbps.

The government wants to see super-fast broadband as the gold standard in most UK homes, and has pledged to make the UK the fastest broadband nation in Europe by 2015. By that time, it also promises to make sure that all homes have speeds of at least 2Mbps.

“Britain might be riding the wave of a super-fast broadband revolution, but for 49% who get less than the national average broadband speed, the wave isn’t causing so much a splash as a ripple,” said Julia Stent, director of telecoms at uSwitch.

“And what’s really surprising is the number of cities and towns such as Hereford and Carlisle that are suffering from slow broadband speeds, dispelling the view that it’s just rural areas and small towns that have issues with their broadband,” she added.

Other towns and cities to offer average broadband speeds of below 5Mbps include Kilmarnock (3.2Mbps), Dumfries (3.6Mbps), Canterbury (4Mbps) and Shrewsbury (4Mbps).

Fast pipes

The government has provided £530m to help local councils fill in the UK’s blackspots. Cumbria, which has several areas in the top 10 slowest postcodes, received the biggest amount, with more than £17m to cope with its 96% of homes eligible for subsidies.

Councils will have to put some of their own money towards the costs, and some have been slow to get the projects off the ground.

For those in well-connected postcodes, the news is much better.

Both Virgin Media and BT have recently turned up the speed dial on their broadband services.

Virgin announced that broadband with speeds of up to 100Mbps was now available to 10 million homes, while BT pledged to offer some homes speeds of up to 300Mbps by 2013.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17130367

The House of Lords will investigate the UK’s aim of introducing superfast broadband to more areas of the country.

It is expected that the House of Lords Communications Committee’s action will assess the government’s proposals to have the best broadband network in Europe by 2015, in order to highlight any possible areas of improvement.

The technology will affect a wide variety of people, ranging from citizens, consumers and businesses to network providers, regulators and the coalition.

Topics that the investigation will cover include the potential changes in digital communications that will be anticipated over the next 20 years, and how these will impact Britain’s tactical investment in its digital infrastructure.

Another issue that the work aims to highlight is if the coalition’s investment in the technology is being applied to ensure maximum social and economic benefits.

Furthermore, the committee will explore the roles that the different methods of delivery will play when it comes to guaranteeing that the UK’s superfast broadband network will be fit for purpose.

Lord Inglewood, chairman of the Communications Committee, discusses the new inquiry in more detail on YouTube, and explained: “Superfast broadband is clearly an important development across Britain, not just for economic growth but also because it will impact on how people do things such as view media content, shop and even access healthcare.

“We want to look into the government’s proposals to find out if its targets are likely to be met and whether it is being ambitious enough in its plans.”

Ed Vaizey, the communications minister, has commented on the UK’s superfast broadband proposals, explaining that good progress is being made by most local authorities.

At the moment, a third of the country’s 47 superfast broadband projects are set to begin providing the connections to residents and businesses, with Shropshire and Telford among the latest councils to have their local broadband plans approved.

Source: Simon White of Broadband Finders

BT Openreach yesterday revealed the names of a further 156 locations in the country which will benefit from its next phase of roll-out of super-fast fibre broadband services, and it includes Madingley Exchange.

Several of the exchanges in the list will be fibre-enabled by the end of 2011, whilst the remainder are expected to be upgraded before the end of 2012. Openreach will provide a more specific date for the enablement of each exchange six months prior to an exchange being upgraded to fibre broadband.

The new locations announced today include the 10 exchange areas that won the recent BT Race to Infinity competition, where members of the public were asked to cast votes for their community to be upgraded to the BT Infinity fibre broadband service. Madingley Exchange was one of the original 6 winning exchanges in the Race to Infinity which concluded in December 2010. A further 4 exchanges which had a significant number of votes cast were subsequently included by BT.

The connections to the exchanges will be a combination of fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) which offers speeds of up to 40Mbps and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) which offers speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Openreach confirmed that of the 156 strong list, only the 10 winners of BT’s Race to Infinity competition, will get the faster FTTP connectivity, while the rest of those on the list will get slower FTTC. These speeds will allow customers to benefit from an enhanced online experience when uploading or downloading files, gaming, social networking or watching streamed video.

This is much welcome news for the communities served by Madingley Exchange, and even more thrilling news to members of the MadX Race Group who worked tirelessly for several weeks in bitter winter conditions of 2010 canvassing and collecting votes from all the residents in Caldecote, Childerley, Dry Drayton Estates, Hardwick, Coton and Madingley thus ensuring our winning position in the Race to Infinity. Our communities can now look forward to enjoying the best that super fast broadband technology has to offer.

Our neighbour Cambourne are in the race to infinity, voting for Caxton Exchange. The campaign has been very successful, with the exchange getting to the 1000 minimum target a week ago, and now at 1152 votes. As a result, there has been a lot of local publicity surrounding the competition, with the Clayton Hudson, the Chair of the Cambourne Parish Council being interviewed on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, together with Craig Strachan, the Marketing Manager for BT. Madingley Exchange was mentioned in that interview…..

When asked why BT is running a competition, Mr Strachan said it was to mobilise rural areas to indicate their interest in faster broadband. He confirmed that BT Infinity, offering speeds up to 40 Mbps,

“is up to 10 times faster than normal broadband, and that whilst it was very hard to visualise the benefits until you get, and its only after you’ve got it you realise the level of frustrations you had with your broadband today“.

Mr Strachan also said its more than convenience:

“its when it comes to streaming, when you have a multi family home, kids upstairs streaming and watching their kids programs and doing their homework, Dad in one room listening to radio and mum in another room playing catchup watching one of the programs she wants to, there will be no buffering which is when the computer stops and the program starts to load again, its a kind of a seamless experience and everyone can do what they want when they want“

So, lives will change for people and communities who do get superfast broadband.

As an encouragement, Mr Strachan confirmed that Cambridgeshire is doing really well in the competition, and in particular

“that Madingley is another one that is up there, though not past the finishing line yet“.

BT  Marketing Manager has noticed that Madingley Exchange is showing interest in the competition, but it is up to us, the residents concerned to prove that there is sufficient interest to justify any capital expenditure.

Residents of Hardwick, Caldecote, Coton and Madingley and southern Dry Drayton are encouraged  to go to the RaceToInfinity website to vote.

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Click here to listen to the full Radio Interview.

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Reflecting on events of the past 4 weeks, it is very good to see that Madingley Exchange is in a strong position to be one of the five exchanges to win the Race to Infinity.

The League Table now shows Madingley Exchange as offcially in 5th place, which is good. Now that we are in the top 5, we must stay in the top 5 and not lose ground.

We are snapping on the heels of  Narborough in Norfolk, who are in 4th place. Interestingly, our next door neighbour Caxton is currently in 2nd position. However, there’s all to play for, and no exchange has reached that magic figure of 1000 yet.

The Race to Infinity is being dominated by exchanges from East Anglia, with two of those being next to Cambridge. It is ironic isn’t it, that exchanges so close to Cambridge, the centre of Technology, should be fighting for their right to be on the information superhighway.

Can we do it? Yes we can.

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Madingley Exchange 5th place

Race to Infinity for Madingley

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We now have 488 votes or 22.89% of what we need.  Which puts us in 5th place in the race to infinity league table.

The Race to Infinity for Madingley Exchange getting geared up. Thank you to all those that have voted. And thank you especially to all our volunteers who are doing a sterling  job in getting the message out there.

This weekend promises to be busy as many areas will be campaigning and leafletting at the various fireworks events taking place throughout the country. So, the league table may well change again by the end of this weekend.

We must not rest on our laurels, but continue to spread the word and get people to vote. The race to infinity is now just over a third in, so time is of essence.

If anyone is having difficulty voting due to the slow broadband speed – unfortunately, BT did not build the site to accomodate those with slow speeds – then please contact the Coordinator, leave a message on this website or on the facebook page, or call the telephone number on the campaign leaflet, or ask your neighbour to vote for you.

Doing nothing is not an option. Do it for your Community, even if you don’t want it for yourself.

Keep the vote coming and lets win the Race to Infinity.

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Over the next five years BT is rolling out superfast fibre optic broadband across the UK, called BT Infinity. It has a defined rollout plan, but not all communities or exchanges will benefit from that plan.

On October 4, 2010 BT  launched a nationwide survey to see how much potential demand there is for fibre broadband. Just as if there was any doubt as to demand…..

In essence, BT is asking rural and sub rural communities to tell it where the company should invest.  From a business point of view, it makes sense, but one would have thought BT would be able to determine, using its vast information resources, to find out where the highest demand is.

This competition, apparently the first of its kind, will run from now until December 31st 2010, and is designed to enable communities that are not on the roll out plan, to express their desire for the service, and try to fast track the area to get BT Infinity.

The survey is given the aptly named “The Race to Infinity“. The five areas with the largest percentage of votes by December 31st 2010 will win the chance to bring superfast broadband to their area. BT will also donate £5,000 of computer equipment to a local community project, and hopes to enable the winning exchanges by early 2012 at the latest.

BT Group is also pledging to engage with any community that gathers 75 per cent of possible votes for their exchange but hasn’t won the competition. This is in the hope that those exchanges can either be included in future commercial phases – if the exchange is deemed commercially viable – or enabled as a result of either public sector or community support as has already happened in some parts of the UK.

So, whether you’re big on social networking, gaming, streaming, uploading or downloading, its time to prepare to have your life transformed with superfast speeds.

To vote simply go to www.RacetoInfinity.bt.com TODAY, and enter your postcode and VOTE for MADINGLEY EXCHANGE.

Don’t forget to pass it on to your friends on Facebook and Twitter so that we can get to the top of that leaderboard.