Cumbria Broadband Slowspots

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We have mapped the identified slowspots in Cumbria from data which appears to have come originally via BDUK. This map shows all those places where properties cannot receive 2Mbps or higher. We do not believe this map is complete and are asking the help of Cumbrian residents and businesses to make sure the full picture is understood, and publicly available.

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

The full Cumbrian broadband slowspot map is available here.

Zoom in, and if there is no circle near to your house or business premises, or within your postcode area, and a speedtest.net test shows that you receive under 2Mbps, please complete the following form and we will add your postcode to the map.

If you know of others nearby who suffer slow broadband, please help them to add their postcode too and tell others about this map, wherever they are in Cumbria, and the press, the radio stations, blogs, twitter etc.

(Due to some discrepancies with how Google maps renders postcodes, we think some of the postcodes are slightly misplaced on some browsers. We are working on this).



Should this data be available in the public domain for every county? We believe so. Then, use the people who can actually run the speedtests in their houses on their equipment (with whatever limitations that has) to pin themselves to the map to get a far truer picture of broadband in the UK. Ditto for mobile coverage.

UPDATE: BBC are announcing a similar crowdsourced exercise for national mobile coverage tomorrow. Hopefully the data will this time be made publicly available and stay on the website forever.

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Voices from the Final Third

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Yesterday, Radio Lancashire devoted the day to rural broadband. (As well as ironing, oddly). Here are some sound clips from those who are daily affected by this country's (market) failure to connect its citizens and businesses and who are represented by the Final Third First campaign. And from Stephen Timms, who phoned in to be interviewed.

Rachel, who runs her own horse riding and trekking centre and cannot get online even to check e-mails. (I think that counts as digitally excluded, Martha!) 2m50s

Sam, David and Matt, who are teenagers, are trying to cope with the lack of a social life, unable to do homework or revision, be part of a band, conduct Uni research, and suffer disbelief from peers and teachers. Why? Because they don't have access to broadband or the Net. 3m48s

Ted and his wife, Mandy, cannot work and study from home. They also have teenagers, who cannot do their homework, access revision from school. Ted cannot work as the rest of the international company he works for do - from home. He points out that many other countries offer broadband accessibility, even on the beach, whilst the UK doesn't. "We need a centralised approach to the infrastructure. This to me is like electric, it's like water ....we provide that ourselves...we have a generator and a wind turbine. We're not frightened of taking it on, we have the will to be able to do it". 4m59s

Chris talks about the Final Third First campaign, the social impact on rural life (especially for teens) without broadband, Wray network, loans, bonds and funding, and removing red tape to enable the build of sustainable community fibre networks. 4m37s

Lindsey (half awake, thanks Chris!) tries to explain what being an Internet Marketer means without broadband and why I want to take my business out of the UK now after 15 years trying to get a decent connection. I would like to point out that this is no reflection on my ISP who have done their very best to work with the laws of physics and ancient/decrepit BT copper. 3m09s

Stephen Timms responds to questions after Sam, a teenager in Lancashire talks about his problems with school, homework and no broadband.

Your comments on the Minister's interview would be welcomed!!

















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Where is the NGA data set?

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Read more! AKA how poor are our govt departments with handling data enquiries?! OK, BIS announce a new report on risk assessment for NGA prepared by Analysys Mason, which is essential reading. But take a couple of Valium first as you will undoubtedly hit the roof at some of the myth perpetuation ongoing in it...

The press release sends you to a variety of sites - Communities and Local Government where you can finally, with some searching, find the report. Within the report is a reference to the data set used to formulate the outputs in an Excel file. Back to the Communities site to look for it - nope. Nothing. Try the BIS site for a reference or link - nothing. Go to data.gov.uk - nothing. Try the ESD Toolkit - nothing. (Or am I just too impatient to search through multiple, intricate layers of non-user friendly websites when the search boxes fail to reveal anything of use for multiple related search terms?)

Reach for phone. Communities and Local Govt know nothing about said report and certainly don't know about an Excel file. In fact, when someone says, "Next Generation.......??" you know you are probably on a hiding to nothing. They send you to publications who know nothing and send you back to the switchboard. They recommend phoning DCMS and BIS. And nicely give you the phone numbers. My long distance call charges are stacking up now....still no luck. When will people spend time and money on educating receptionists so they know who to refer you to?

Phone Analysys Mason in desperation. "We'll ring you back. The person who may know is in a meeting."

So much for the immediacy of e-government. Start preparing the carrier pigeon and the fire for smoke signals......

I'll post on the report shortly when I have calmed down a little at the inadequacies of our civil servants and e-gov!

UPDATE: Hooray for Analysys Mason returning calls. But now we need to wait and see when the data might actually be available from Govt.....
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