11 January (Part 1) - Immoral fibre
Fibre broadband has come to Welling and nobody will begrudge Councillor Munur’s elation at his 74 Megabit connection. The six he had over copper was probably insufficient for a young chap who might be more into streaming video than I am.
However
it is a bit rich for him to thank Teresa O’Neill for continuing to push for
superfast broadband when without her he may have had a faster connection long ago.
It is true that Bexley Council is now pushing hard for an excellent borough wide
digital infrastructure but as with their policy on river crossings they have
only very recently seen the light.
In the recent past Bexley Council has quite deliberately thrown spanners into BT’s works. As a result
25,000 Bexley homes had no access to fibre broadband as recently as three months ago.
Earlier still they had been
allowing individual Nimbys to veto BT’s ambitions
contrary to planning requirements. This website has been
covering Bexley Council's feet dragging over fibre broadband on an off for
more than two years but they simply weren't interested. Then, six weeks ago BT went public with this comment…
We have been in dispute with Bexley Council concerning permits to undertake streetworks and this was preventing us undertaking
any work in the borough to deploy fibre broadband. I’m pleased to say that the dispute has now been resolved and we have resumed delivery work.
Given free rein at last, BT produced the goods in double quick time. However
don’t let Bexley Council fool you into thinking that Welling broadband speeds have been
dramatically improved due to their efforts, the reverse is closer to the truth.