Cumbria...take a very deep breath

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Herefordshire, North Yorkshire, Scotland and every other county who thinks it has won the pools with BDUK, this includes you too. Shall I give you the good news first? Or are you up for the bad?

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



OK, neighbours, take this in.

Good news first.

The shouting about outside-in has, finally, hit a target. (That's it, the good news). Only taken, what? A decade? Now, let's see if there is some sort of consistency between documents, thinking, procurement..... CCC, BDUK, CALC et al are being particularly tight-arsed with sharing info at present, but hopefully when Jim, Liz and all the others return, who seem to be missing in action right now (holidays and visits on Tuesday by ministers etc), this blog might have some answers for you. I'd far prefer to be doing a different type of digging but needs must....

State Aid compliance has not yet been met. Heard this from 3 different sources last night. So, if you are one of the pilots, leave your hands tied to the chair for a while longer. There is no ERDF dosh coming your way, yet. Personally, I'd JFDI and forget the promises of free cash - it's looking increasingly vacuous.

Still no definition of SFBB in any county, and particularly not ours. Ask your MP about symmetry if all you are going to get is 2Mbps, which seems to be the ambition for this fair nation now - roll back to 2002 or worse, 1984. Question of the day is though: since when has SFBB meant choice of provider before speed of connection?

I'm breaking this into multiple posts as even I am struggling to take this all in now we're past the good news.