The government is running a scheme to finance super fast broadband (in our case, ten times as fast as we have now) to rural communities. We currently have an opportunity to get this installed to the whole village free. The cost of connecting everyone can be covered by vouchers funded by the government, provided enough households or businesses join in. It has to be a community effort to make it work.
If we get it, though, we’ll have ‘fibre-to-the-premises’ to every house instead of relying on old copper wires. Our internet connections will be as fast and future-proof as it’s currently possible to make them, and it needn’t cost us anything.
What’s the catch? You have to promise that, within a year of being connected to the fibre network, you will take out a broadband contract with a fibre provider. It doesn’t have to be any particular one, and there’s no reason why it should be any more expensive than your current broadband.
You can check which ISPs offer Full Fibre service by looking at https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/ultrafast-broadband/ultrafast-fibre-buy-it-now . You cannot check Ultrafast prices for North Dalton postcodes as the Gigabit infrastructure is not in place yet, but postcode MK18 2HY is a comparable area, so you can see typical prices there.
To make this happen, we need as many people as possible to pledge their vouchers to Openreach. You can do this via the website at https://www.openreach.com/connect-my-community There’s no commitment until we have enough pledges to cover the cost of the project. There are more details in this leaflet.
Please pass the message on!
Feel free to contact me via communitybroadband@northdalton.org if you want to know more.
Peter Robinson
Hello, I am currently in the process of viewing 2 houses in North Dalton. I work from home and need ultrafast broadband. I note your article produced in Jan 21 and wondered if anything had come of this? Regards Mark Gronow.
Hi Mark. Sorry for the long delay – I didn’t get automatically notified of your post for some reason, and it’s only just been pointed out to me. It’s probably too late now, but to answer your question: no, we couldn’t get enough people in the village to sign up, so we didn’t qualify for the free fibre-to-the-premises installation. We do have fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband, so you can get speeds of around 50Mbps. That may vary depending on where in the village you are – the cabinet is at the west end. I hope that helps.