Fibre To The Premises
Dear Nash Residents
After nearly a year of liaising with Openreach, we’ve finally done it. Our Gigabit Voucher Pledge Site is finally open for us to pledge our vouchers. Now we all need to get pledging as we only have 12 weeks to pledge enough vouchers for the scheme to be implemented.
There are 189 houses in the scheme and each household can pledge one voucher worth £1,500 or £3500 for a business which the government pay for. As there is currently no top up from BCC, we need 115 households to pledge their vouchers to reach our target of £173,000
As a reminder, this scheme will bring Fibre Broad Band to your house thus future proofing all 189 Nash houses in terms of connectivity. This will probably be our one and only chance to carry out this work at no cost to the village and villagers. Openreach have stated that once we reach our target, they will carry out the work within 12 months.
Once you pledge your voucher, you must take out a contract or upgrade with your provider to meet the criteria below:
- A minimum speed of 30 Mbps or double speed if the speed received today is greater than this, i.e. if you receive 40 Mbs today, you will be expected to take 80Mbs
- Your new connection must be for a minimum of 12 months and taken within 2 months of the scheme being completed
A list of providers that can provide this super-fast service once the infrastructure is built can be found here https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fttp-providers You will see familiar names such as BT, Sky, Talk Talk, Vodafone and Zen. You can chose your provider which was our main reason for building the infrastructure with Openreach.
How do I pledge my voucher?
The next step is for us to pledge our free £1,500 vouchers. To pledge your voucher, go to this link:
https://www.openreach.com/connectmycommunity
You will land on an Openreach page where you can check your eligibility. Enter your postcode and the site will check you are one of the 189 houses on the scheme. You will then see a screen which says, “Your area is eligible!” Now simply click on the green button which states, “Pledge for KEYNES Ultrafast Community Project” and complete the details.
Your details are required so that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) who fund the scheme can check you are part of a scheme and hence release the funds to Openreach. It will also ask you to “Accept our pledge terms” which are the two bullet points above in relation to taking out a 12-month contract and speed.
That’s it! That is all you need to do, and it will take you about 5 mins. This is a great opportunity for the village and will ensure we are not left behind in terms of connectivity. If we do not take advantage of this scheme now, it may be the last chance we get to get it free. If we have to pay for the scheme, it will cost the village at least £173,000 which I think we all agree would be impossible to raise. So please get pledging now. It’s simple, quick and easy.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on this email: Luisp.carpediem@gmail.com
Thanks
Luis