Connecting Shropshire

Just to let you know in case you miss it, we've got a new exchange area map on our website which can help you check your house/business's postcode and availability of fibre. http://connectingshropshire.co.uk/when-and-where/

The speeds you would get would depend largely on how far from your cabinet you are and less so on the ISP package you get. Off the top of my head I'm not sure what ISPs serve these areas but Sam Knows is a great website which shows what ISPs are in your area and what they can offer you as you can go with any of them through the fibre network (only saying as many people get a little confused and think they have to go through BT, but it open to any ISP) Here's the link to Sam Knows for you to use when the cabs are live :) http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

Just had a look through and got some info for you on Weston Rhyn and Selattyn. Weston Rhyn is served by three cabinets - Chirk 6, 11 and 16. We're currently working on all three of these and are nearing a go live date around the end of October. I'll come back and post in here when they are live and will tweet out on Twitter too. For Selattyn there is slightly less good news I'm afraid. While the main cabinet that serves it is in the programme (Oswestry Cabinet 18), it is quite a long way away from the village which means there may not be much increase in speeds because of the distance of copper wire from the cabinet to the village. There is a little bit more info on this effect through our FAQ page on the website if anyone would like it. It may be one of the areas we come back to towards the end of the programme to assess and could be an area we look to improve with Superfast Extension Programme funding afterwards. I'm sorry I can't give you a better picture at this stage and it's not the news you were hoping for but I thought it was at least better to let you know what our data is predicting than not.

Hi everyone! We were kindly invited to join and talk about the rollout plan and the thinking behind it. So here is a quick(ish) summary. The programme has a £24m budget and the main aim we’ve got is to build the fibre network to serve as many premises as possible. The premises included in our programme area are all ones which would not have been served by the commercial network because it is ‘commercially unviable’ (meaning the cost of installing the network would exceed any revenue gained from it by the company installing it). Some areas in the programme, like Harlescott in Shrewsbury for example, are relatively densely populated and nearby to existing fibre networks but still were not planned for fibre because of this. In order to make the money benefit as many people as we can and the network be built as much as we can, we’re building outwards from where the fibre network already exists (this is often called ‘points of presence’ in the industries). This of course means areas where there is currently no fibre nearby and very expensive to install will be towards the end of the programme. By building in these areas later the cost of building is much lower than it would be if we were to be building there now. This means that the money can go as far as possible and the network is as far reaching as possible and as many people in Shropshire will benefit. I can understand that, at this early stage, it can seem that the programme is not focussing on the harder to reach areas. But this is simply because we’re not at that stage in the roll out yet – we will be in these areas as time goes on and the network grows. I know it can be like waiting for Christmas, but we are working our way there! Some places unfortunately won’t be included in the programme, it is inevitable with a finite budget sadly. However, we are looking at finding alternative options for these areas and are hopeful that we can reach them with extra funding so you aren’t left behind. On a side note - we're expecting the first cabinets in St Martin's to be going live in the coming weeks after some blockages that was stopping them being connected to the fibre optic cable have been cleared. I've got to dash off now as I'm all the way up in Scotland this weekend but will be back on Monday. Enjoy your weekend anyone reading this! :)