Superfast West Yorkshire is the local BDUK project charged with ensuring that 90% (or later 95%) of premises have the choice of connecting to a 'Superfast' (24mbps or more) in one form or another.
It's important to qualify at this stage that BDUK (in the interests of making the funding go further and benefit more people) is about providing access to those who do not yet have access to any superfast service rather than necessarily giving anyone a choice of provider.
This is particularly important in Addingham as some years ago parts of the village were fortunate enough to have been cabled by Virginmedia, who as well as TV services can provide superfast broadband over the same cables. Presence of a Virginmedia service in an area of the village should exclude that area from the Superfast West Yorkshire (SFWY) project (BDUK plans to a postcode level).
SFWY will be deploying Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) style broadband, as described in the really easy to understand video at BT Openreach's Big Build page.
A quirk of this deployment though is that anywhere there is a street telephone wiring cabinet that serves customers who cannot get a Virginmedia service will be upgraded. Thus hopefully 'accidentally' giving all customers served by that cabinet a choice of any broadband provider who will activate the FTTC service built by BT Openreach.
As I understand it so far Addingham's phone cabinets will be upgraded as follows, which is a direct quote from SFWY.
Addingham Cabs 1, 2, 3 and 4 are in the Superfast West Yorkshire rollout plan, these are currently planned to be delivered in Phase 4; January-June 2015. A new cab will be built to serve the exchange only (EO) lines, this is likely to be in the later stages of the project, by September 2015. There is one other cab that serves premises on Moor Park Drive, Moor Park Close and Moor Park Crescent, this is not being updated as it is already covered by Virgin, as previously discussed. When the cabs have been updated, internet service providers (ISPs) are notified so they can offer services in the area. The lines that were EO will have the same options as the FTTC, because when the new cab has been built for them they will be FTTC. The only difference is they will be updated at a later stage to the other cabs.
My interpretation of this, and I could be wrong, is that everyone in Addingham will get a choice of FTTC, except those served by Cabinet E7(?) - the premises on Moor Park as described above.
For those residents with lines that run direct from the exchange (that do not pass through an existing cabinet) Exchange Only or EO - the good news is they will get a connection choice too (surprisingly this is only a recent innovation!). However some of those people will have very long lines and that will limit the speed somewhat, but hopefully still be in the superfast band.
In terms of those who might miss out - Anyone on Moor Park, or in that area who cannot get Virginmedia today, and any new premises in that area of the village. Anyone in this position should contact Superfast West Yorkshire immediately and (1) register their interest on the website, as well as checking your postcode, (2) make direct contact to ask if you will be covered by the project in future and how.
Since it is January 2015 already there is some visible progress to report (none of this is inside information, just my interpretation of what I can see in the street)
- A new wiring cabinet in front of the exchange premises (for the EO lines)
- An FTTC broadband cabinet in front of the exchange premises (for the EO lines)
- Power laid and an FTTC cabinet on the way at Cabinet 3 (Old Station Way / Mount Pleasant)
- Power work started at Cabinet 2 (Silsden Road)
