Response from Sheffield Council

[Zytron]

I used the contact form on the Sheffield council website to ask if they had any plans about filling in the not-spots once DR is closed down, BDUK etc since BT don't have plans for Sheffield and Virgin don't have large coverage around here.

Their reply:
"Thank you for your enquiry to Customer Services regarding affordable high-speed broadband access.

I am sorry, Sheffield City Council does not have anything to do with telephone exchanges and copper or fibber optic telephone / broadband access.
This is dealt with by Ofcom, BT Wholesale, BT Openreach and Virgin Media."

Disappointing (plus they couldn't even copy and paste my name correctly)


TL;DR Not down to us.

[WillPS]

It's not even true. Take them to task.

[alexatkin]

Yup, complete bollards.

[essenby]

Ask them about the South Yorkshire Broadband project which

Quote: " . . is aiming to improve the provision of broadband Infrastructure by delivering Superfast Broadband (at least 24Mbits/s) to at least 95% residential and business premises in the South Yorkshire Region."

That is from the horses mouth!

There has already been a public consultation on this and discussions should already be well underway and the City Council should be aware of that.

[Zytron]

Slightly better response to my follow-up, specifically asking about South Yorkshire Broadband:

"Let me apologise for the miss and lack of information regarding your Online Enquiry 101001340132. As this project was only passed on Friday the 11th April 2014, we are still waiting for information to about it.

However, regarding your recent enquiry about Broadband connectivity in Sheffield;

Sheffield Council, along with the other South Yorkshire Local Authorities, are participating in a national broadband connectivity project that is being coordinated by Sheffield City Region (SCR). The project has put together a ?Local Broadband Plan? and has submitted it to ?BDUK?. The aim of this project is to enable 95% or so of SCR premises to access superfast broadband with the remaining 5% being able to access a 2Mb ?usable? broadband connection. There are some areas of the city that may not be able to be funded through this route. At this stage we are working with BDUK to confirm which those areas are and secondly how we could implement a similar scheme through some other funding scheme. The project will cover the broadband network infrastructure only, not end user internet services. The costs are met by the Sheffield City Region, BDUK and the chosen Supplier. The invitation to tender was issued last Friday and we expect to award the contract to the preferred supplier by the end of June 2014. The roll out of the broadband will be completed by 2017 (probs. the end of the calendar year).

At this stage I cannot say if/when any individual property will be able to access superfast broadband/usable broadband - we will not know that until July at the earliest when the roll out plan has been agreed. Please note that even then the roll out plan could change - if for example a site survey uncovered a problem.

If your require further information about this, please contact us again mid-to-end of July."

[essenby]

That can't be right surely? After all

Quote: . .Sheffield City Council does not have anything to do with . . broadband access.

Unfortunately the following does fill me with a little forboding:-

Quote:There are some areas of the city that may not be able to be funded through this route.

Seems to suggest that those areas that aren't currently served by the great god BT/OR, won't even be considered

[WillPS]

Or they could mean the (relatively) high number of direct to exchange connections in Sheffield city centre?

[masterfunk]

This sounds a lot like all the other regional broadband projects that have been happening all over the country under BDUK. Some pretty solid dates are given there considering the BDUK funding is late (due to there previously being no funding due to DRL).

It should also be noted that the broadband project page of the Sheffield LEP has been updated. There is no longer a link to the consultation draft, but they have stated their goal of "95% superfast broadband coverage by 2017"

There is no mention of the June/July date for further information

http://sheffieldcityregion.org.uk/syproj...broadband/