Sadly the details of the contract being signed between BT and Cumbria County Council for the provision of better broadband throughout the county are still being hammered out and it looks as if the final signature may slip to January. The plan is currently to begin roll-out in March 2013 but the Council claims that decisions about which areas will get what when are still far from being made.
If your service provider is BT, there is something that you can do to help BT understand what’s going on. The Chief Executive of BT Openreach, Olivia Garfield, has specifically invited BT customers to email her and tell her when the speeds they are getting widely vary from what they have paid for. Her email address is olivia.garfield@openreach.co.uk. Please take a moment to let BT know how frustrated we’re all feeling (and copy your email to me at lois.sparling@gmail.com if you feel able to).
A good website to use to check your speed is http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk. There is no need to ‘run a scan’ before you click on ‘Start speed test’. This is a marketing ploy.
Thanks for taking action to improve our rural broadband coverage!
Lois Sparling
Broadband Champion