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Monkston
MILTON KEYNES
Buckinghamshire
Thursday 27th March 2003
Mr. Brian White MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear Mr. White,
We are representing the Monkston and Middleton Broadband Campaign Group.
At current we have 120 householders showing a strong interest in the (lack
of) Broadband service in and around the Monkston and the Middleton areas of
Milton Keynes.
Our numbers have grown exponentially in the three weeks of the group’s
existence.
Our aims:
• Share and support any information that we may have regarding the
inadequate current state of the Milton Keynes telecommunication
infrastructure.
• Provide a quality technological insight; over and above what BT/Cabling
Sub-contractors currently release. 15% of our members have strong IT and
Telecoms knowledge. One of whom has IEG Statement experience from within
local/national government.
• Coordinate the communication with councillors, local government officers,
MP’s (your good self) and other organisations.
• Ultimately, enforce the provisioning of high quality Broadband services (QoS)
to our immediate and surrounding areas in Milton Keynes.
Key Issues:
MONKSTON & MIDDLETON
Over the last 2-3 years, many people have recently moved to their brand new
homes. Everybody had naturally assumed Broadband Internet would be available
immediately without issue. But it's only available to a seldom few! This is
well below the standard that anybody would expect having moved to a
technologically inspired ‘New City’!
British Telecom’s TECHNOLOGY
Unimaginably for what ever forsaken reasons, BT's infrastructure for
Monkston/Middleton consists of a fibre-optic cable and long distance copper.
As we already know, ADSL is not provided by BT over fibre optic. Long
distance copper means line tests for subscribers requesting ADSL will
inevitably fail.
ALTERNATIVE BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY
Wireless Networking – a stop gap solution.
Proper fibre optic infrastructure! None of this narrow band 155Mbps stuff!
Hong Kong has 10Mbps to the home, The Netherlands 2 Mbps. OK 500kbps ADSL
would be great, but quite simply we want a quality long term solution, no
quick fixes!
RESTRICTIVE COVENANT
We have approached several wireless network companies. The technology
requires externally mounted aerials. "Forget loft aerials at 2.4 GHz!
They've got to be in the clear, AND outside!" This falls foul of our
restrictive covenant - we may not erect aerials in Milton Keynes.
GRANTS
What grants are available for Broadband and alternative technologies, such
as Wireless Networks? For example there's RABBIT, "Remote Area Broadband
Inclusion Trial". It's very hard to justify our position as Milton Keynes is
not in a remote region of the countryside.
INFLUENCE
British Telecom is only duty bound to provide 2.4 kbps. OFTEL are very
pleasant and mollifying.
What we would like to know; is Broadband an issue in the current situation
and is it, being a requirement demanded by so many, that you have serious
influence over?
As a member of the IT community, I’m sure you understand the prolonged
frustrations of the Broadband-less residential services in Milton Keynes!
Finally, may I propose that we meet with you? We can then understand the
situation from your perspective. The points raised within this letter can
form the agenda for our meeting.
Yours sincerely,
Nick Hubbard & Richard E. Evans
Coordinator & Secretary for Monkston and Middleton Broadband Campaign Group
WWW: http://www.bb4monkston.co.uk |