Category Archives: Broadband

DCMS Project Funding Secured

Thank you for your incredible patience over the past few months whilst we undertook design and planning work for your project area, followed by the subsequent submission to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for funding approval.

We’re thrilled to announce that after much dialogue with DCMS we have received final funding approval and sign off for Llanwrda & Llandovery. 🎉🎉🎉

What happens now?

We wish we could say immediate connection, but alas what happens now is the actual hard work involved in connecting you with awesome gigabit full fibre ⛏️.

🚛 Mobilisation

Funding confirmed means we’re now able to ramp up our local mobilisation and so you will begin to see more lovely folk from our sister companies, full fibre network builder ‘Telcom Infrastructure’ and civil engineering company ‘Pioneer Utilities’, over the coming weeks.

🎫 Gigabit Vouchers

As mentioned the whole project is only made possible by accessing grant funding in the shape of Rural Gigabit Vouchers, a scheme run by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. If you have already signed up by applying for a grant then the time has come to receive your long awaited voucher. In the next few weeks you should receive an email from DCMS asking you to approve your voucher, so please do look out for this and confirm your voucher request as directed in the email.

If you haven’t yet applied for your voucher simply head over towefibre.com/grantsand complete our short form to lock in your grant funding today!

Llanwrda WeFibre Project Introduction

This email has come in from WeFibre – we urgently need a few more people to sign up to get onto the trial. This will provide future proofed internet access for the community in the future.

What is currently on offer from other providers is a pittance in comparison and as we all work from home more and potentially school from home more we are going to need what WeFibre offer.

This email has recently come in and is encouraging us to sign up a further 41 houses

Welcome to your community project!

Community Project Name: Llanwrda
Community Project Code: SW26

We committed to put everyone who has expressed interest into a community project area and this email is an introduction to your project area, and what you can do to take your project area forward.📌

Geographic Area

We’ve created your project footprint based upon the following factors:

Addressable market or rather how many properties are within the project area. Over 96% of projects are made up of more than 300 properties with some as high as 1000 properties.

Distance from intended cabinet location. In each project we have a limit of 17km on the total distance from the intended cabinet location to your property. The distances are based upon following roads and not calculated on straight lines.

Location of Openreach Exchange. We will be tapping into exchanges in order to connect you upstream to the internet and so have based each project on it’s access to an exchange.
✋ Current interest

To date we have received the following level of interest from your project community: 🗳️ 59 signups

The threshold we need to meet for your project is 100 signups and so we need your help with spreading the word to your neighbours and wider community in order to help us achieve this target.
🦸 How you can help speed things up

Each project we undertake is always community driven and so we always require at least 3 WeFibre heroes.

A WeFibre hero can help in many ways:

📢 The community champion
Are you the man or woman about town? Do you find yourself not being able to walk 100 metres before bumping into someone you know? You could be just the person we’re looking for! Each project requires at least one community champion, the purpose of the community champion is simple – We need as many people to reserve a voucher as possible in order to make your project viable so we need a community champion to spread the word about WeFibre.

🛫 The enabler
Every build needs a starting point, a place where all the fibre goes back to and the magic happens. For each network build, we need a small area (approx 120cm x 50cm) to install an outdoor cabinet, a bit like the green ones you see on the streets. It’s very unobtrusive, but will require some temporary power whilst we get the cabinet hooked up to the mains and we will need access to it once in a while. If you have a bit of unused land that could be suitable, you could enable this whole project. We will follow up with a separate email on the approximate area where we need the cabinet to be located.

🏡 The host
We’re rolling this out in areas all over the country and so storing equipment and materials out our central base in Manchester doesn’t always make logistical sense. We therefore require a bit of land (ideally 2,000 sq ft or more) to call home for a few weeks. We’re not pescious how it looks and we’re very tidy tenants and always clear up after ourselves. We would need to place a shipping container on this land temporarily so as to secure materials and plant whilst we roll out services in your community.


A little thank you for your help

Anyone who steps up to be a WeFibre hero (cape optional) will receive free internet for 3 years as a thank you for your support. To qualify for free internet as a community champion you will need to have referred at least 20 people to WeFibre.

Do I need to do anything?

This whole project is only made possible by accessing grant funding in the shape of Rural Gigabit Vouchers, a scheme run by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. If you have already applied for a grant on the WeFibre website, then that’s it for now, you can sit back, put on the kettle ☕ and let us do all the hard work involved in bringing the goodness of WeFibre to your door.

If you haven’t yet applied for your voucher simply head over to wefibre.com/grants and complete our short form to lock in your grant funding today!

Urgent – Broadband Update

The following email has been received from the council – it currently mentions two providers but a third is also interested. This is Telecom Networks and their presentation is available to look at

We are also aware a number of us have been unable to access the website to confirm who we would like as our provider – please ensure you contact Ceri on CeJenkins@carmarthenshire.gov.uk to let the council know – also please make a comment here on the post to let us know.

Also don’t forget that if you didn’t get a chance to register in the first place that does not mean that you are excluded from the scheme, you will still be able to register however you won’t be able to pick the supplier.

 

Following on from the Broadband Upgrade Fund campaign, you may be aware that suppliers have expressed an interest in your area. To see which suppliers are interested in your area you will need to log in to the portal – Log in | Broadband Upgrade Fund (campaign.gov.uk)

You will need to follow the steps after logging in, the choice at the moment is an individual one based on what each provider has put forward as their offer. At this stage there are still no contractual obligations by either party to proceed.

  1. Broadway Partners have expressed an interest in your area, they have asked that you receive this presentation on their behalf. Please see attached. 

For more information please contact – info@broadwaypartners.co.uk

  1. Beacons Telecom have also expressed an interest in your area and are offering online meetings for a chance to discuss further. Please see below –

Beacons Telecom would like to invite you to a presentation on their proposal to install a Fibre to the Premise network throughout Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion

Agenda

1. Beacons Telecom Introduction

2. Areas for installation

3. Beacons Telecom products and services

4. Your choices

5. Broadband Upgrade Fund next steps

Tuesday 5th January 2021 7:00 – 8:00 PM

Link to meeting – https://meet.google.com/qyi-zyac-rjs

Calendar Notice

https://calendar.google.com/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=XzhwMzRhY2hrNjUyajBiOWw2MTMzOGI5azZrczQ0YjlvNmgyNDZiOWk2NHNqNmUxaTZzcGpnZzlqNnMgdHJldm9yQGJlYWNvbnN0ZWxlY29tLmNvbQ&tmsrc=trevor%40beaconstelecom.com

Wednesday 6th January 2021 7:00 – 8:00 PM

Link to meeting – https://meet.google.com/tna-gunm-ram

Calendar Notice

https://calendar.google.com/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=N251OW1hazVvNzhvY2I2bjY1ZWUzdW9tam0gdHJldm9yQGJlYWNvbnN0ZWxlY29tLmNvbQ&tmsrc=trevor%40beaconstelecom.com

Thursday 7th January 2021 7:00 – 8:00 PM

Link to meeting – https://meet.google.com/afi-xpjj-ruj

Calendar Notice

https://calendar.google.com/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=NDk1cWFhNGUxNmJjYjJwdjVsa2ZhZnQ0M2IgdHJldm9yQGJlYWNvbnN0ZWxlY29tLmNvbQ&tmsrc=trevor%40beaconstelecom.com

Support to improve broadband connectivity

Does your community have difficulty in accessing high speed broadband? If so, residents and businesses could be entitled to a broadband upgrade.

The government’s Broadband Upgrade Fund campaign launched in Carmarthenshire yesterday to help businesses, employees and countryside communities take advantage of all the benefits associated with faster and more reliable internet connections.

The government is offering rural residents up to £1,500 and small to medium sized businesses up to £3,500 to upgrade to gigabit broadband, which is capable of download speeds of 1 gigabit (1000 megabits) per second and is much faster than the current speeds experienced across Carmarthenshire.

Upgrading to gigabit broadband will mean homes and businesses in Carmarthenshire will have the world-class, future-proof and reliable internet connections they need to keep pace with new advances in technology, and the jobs and growth that comes with it, in the decades to come.

Encouraging communities to come together, residents and businesses can combine their interest to increase the overall fund the community is entitled to. Registration is open until 30 September 2020, and rural residents and business owners in Carmarthenshire are encouraged to check if they are eligible.

Some premises and business across Carmarthenshire will also be able to benefit from the Welsh Government’s top-up voucher scheme, taking the potential funding for individual premises up to £3,000 and up to £7,000 for businesses.

In most cases, the funding provided will pay for the cost of installing the new broadband provided there is enough properties in a group project.

We would appreciate if you could promote this within your communities.

For more details on this, contact cejenkins@carmarthenshire.gov.uk