All of the local residents who have lived in Farlington for more than two years may remember that David carried out a survey of the Broadband speeds that were available to telephone users in our immediate area. The results were used to reinforce our arguments for a Fibre link from Stillington (or Sherrif Hutton) to Farlington. The situation has moved on and BT considers that it has fulfilled its commitment to provide HSBB to local rural areas but we do not appear to be receiving the, frequently promised, improved connectivity. Members of the Parish Meeting are attempting to re-energise the work and need current figures to prove that we have no better Broadband than we had 3 or 4 years ago.
Farlington Broadband Survey
Survey
May I ask all residents in the Farlington area who use the internet to provide the following information:
- Are you connected to a BT Line?
- Do you subscribe to BT Broadband?
- Are you connected to Broadband by:
- a) Laptop?
- b) Desktop PC?
- If you have any idea of your current Internet speed what is it ?
You can use the Which? internet speed check tool to find out your connection speed.
Please email your replies to treasurer@farlington.org.uk
Background
In the Parish Meeting of May 2019 we reported that no progress had been made on the delivery of fibre BBand to the village, despite a private supply being installed as far as Ashbrook Barns. The situation was to be chased up.
We now can confirm that the cost of bringing a fibre link the 2 miles from Stillington has been covered privately and we know that there is plenty of capacity to run this further into the village in the future. OpenReach are now in the final stages of completing the fibre optic link between the Stillington Exchange and Ashbrook Barns but we have had no news about any progress towards utilising this link to facilitate a spur into the village proper.
A contact in Stillington has been taking a close interest in the progress of the installation of HSBB into our area and he has tracked the progress of BT over seven years since the Project was started. However, with the BT element of the project now almost complete, information on progress has almost dried up. We understand that the Exchange is connected and, coming soon will be notices of the future exchange connections, in general. Very helpful but we have not been able to positively confirm that this includes a link to Farlington. It looks like BT Have completed their side of the Contract (to equip Telephone exchanges for HSBB), but not fulfilled their promise at the start of the Contract to equip all Green Termination Boxes (GTBs) with a Fibre feed. (Some of you may remember that there was an old PO Termination Box at the side the road opposite to the entrance of the Church but that was removed some 5 years ago – just before the push to provide nationwide HSBB – leaving just a capped terminal junction projecting above ground).
Our contact in Stillington is a member of the Villages Forum who meet once every three months or so to review local projects and developments. At a recent meeting it was requested that they got to grips with the local problems with HSBB and hold a Survey of who is still waiting of a reasonable level of Broadband. This was accepted and although directed specifically at the Stillington area it was hoped to be able to include the remainder of the local Communities that do not have a reasonable level of Broadband in the discussion. Our contact is allocating a day per week to Broadband and is working to help Villages such as Farlington to acquire a level of reasonable Broadband speed so we hope for some more answers in the near future. There may also be an interim resolution for the problems at Farlington but that is still being discussed.