Ceredigion Strategies, Plans and Performance

I came across this document while looking for any insight into Ceredigion councils plans to improve Broadband. The word Broadband is mentioned once in the context of it being a problem.

Access to Services

Difficulty of access to services is one of the most obvious features of the County

(accompanied by an element of inequality); applies not only to rural areas but also for some high level services which are only provided at some distance and aredifficult to access from any area of the county; does not just refer to geographical access since Ceredigion is also disadvantaged in digital access, i.e. high speed broadband; new models of service provision may improve geographical access and, as importantly, the means of access.

Could this contribute to  the two very valid observation that

Vulnerable employment structure with a very high proport

ion of employment inpublicly funded

sectors and a high proportion of

very small businesses; a relatively static business environment with low reate of business creation.

A relatively large number of Ceredigion’s young people (late

teens to early 20s) leaving the area;

often because of the lack of good local opportunities

for employment and career development

I wonder if improving broadband services was not seen as important enough to make it into this document (I read the ommision as its a problem but not our problem) contributes in some way to the observations above. I have searched the wider internet and I can't find anything useful that Ceredigion Council have done to promote broadband connectivity, its been left to WAG and BT.  Substantated comments with suggest otherwise welcome.

Nice document, wonder how much it cost to produce?

FTTRN or FTTP : OpenReach don't make it easy to find out what is going on

Blurred but who cares .....

The rather poor pic. above is of 2 loops of fiber optic cable put up just over 3 weeks ago 400m from our house. This is great, but the next steps are proving more awkward to determine and these are the questions I can't answer at this time. FTTC will not fly where we are

• Has cabinet 7 in Llanfarian been enabled. Rumour control says it has.
• Will we get anything?
• Will we get Fiber To The Remote Node or FTTP?
• When?
• How do we get a survey done by OpenReach ?
• What thickness is the duct for the fiber optic cable? 

The contractors I spoke to who put these cables up did say it would be at least January before the joints were done, thats not a problem.

Give I have paid attention to this subject for the last few years and can't find these things out would give me some concerns about how effective the communication policy is beyond "here is a web site".

If we (ourself and the neighbour down the track) get FTTRN, then things may be good. If it has to be FTTP, then there is a non-trivial process of getting permission to cross 2 farmers land, digging or mole ploughing in suitable ducts which could take a few months to do. We have the hardware, just need to know what needs to be done.

Still more in limbo than I feel comfortable with, but great progess by Openreach all the same.