Invitation: We seek your views about which project (Openreach or Spectrum) is your preference and need to establish how much support each option has before making the decision on which route to take.
If you’ve not already done so, you should review the information currently published about the schemes here before completing the survey.
To help us, please complete this short survey by the end of Thursday 2nd July 2020. One response per property please. Note that your participation in this will NOT commit you to any future course of action.
ALSO, you should only participate if you are interested in having a fibre broadband connection to your premises in the near future.
Many thanks,
David May, Lance Rowell, Steve Davis, Rachael Geddes [Penallt fibre steering group]
28 June 2020
Details: we reached 94 of the 138 properties involved by email and had 69 responses by the deadline, a response rate of 74%.
Response summary
Would it be a major problem if you had to move to a different ISP?
Some 55 of the 69 replied that it would not be a major problem.
My preference with regard to the two schemes is
I am happy to delegate the decision regarding which project to select to the steering group listed in the introduction to this survey.
Yes: 64 No: 5
Conclusions
The results from the last question give the steering group the mandate to make the decision about which scheme to select. The previous question shows 37 in favour of Openreach and 17 in favour of Spectrum. When strength of preference is taken into account, the balance is weighted even more towards Openreach.
The latter is in accord with the steering group’s current view. A year ago, we were firmly in support of Spectrum. But, despite many requests for a firm declaration of exactly what their commitment to the project is, we still have no certainty about their plans and cannot wait any longer. We really have no option but to support the clear proposal from Openreach.
Next steps
In the meantime, please do nothing! If either Openreach or Spectrum should contact you asking to sign up for vouchers, or to their scheme, please hold fire!
We are about to enter the stage where we need to look at the detail of how the scheme, particularly the finances, will operate and we will be meeting with Openreach shortly to discuss this.
We obviously want work to start as soon as possible so, when the logistics are agreed, we will let you know exactly what the Openreach proposal is and explain clearly what each individual’s part in it is.
Costs
There have been several questions about what the cost of fibre broadband will be. When you sign up for a voucher to pay for the scheme, you commit yourself to taking out a 30Mb/s (minimum) fibre broadband service to start within a 12 month period. There may be a set-up fee involved too, depending on providers, as a new router will be needed.
Typical monthly fees are in the range £22 to £30 and include telephone, i.e. not very different from what e.g. Spectrum customers pay at the moment. One source of costs is www.uswitch.com/broadband/compare/fibre_optic/. But note that not all the providers listed there would be available.