Help Alderley Edge get superfast broadband

From what I could find out, BT is rolling out superfast fibre optic broadband across the UK over the next five years. At the moment Alderley Edge is NOT on the announced roll out plan. The Race to Infinity gives us the opportunity to fast track our area to get BT Infinity next!

The five areas with the largest percentage of votes by December 31st 2010 will win the chance to bring superfast broadband to their area. BT will also donate £5,000 of computer equipment to a local community project.

If we had superfast broadband here at alderleyedge.com (£5k would be nice as well) we might even bring you alderleyedge.tv! So get voting!

Even if you do not use BT as your ISP you should still vote as all ISP's use the same exchange. Please go to http://www.racetoinfinity.bt.com/ to vote - it only takes about 2 minutes.

My vote is in. High-speed Internet access can make a real difference to local businesses so thank you, Lisa, for raising awareness of this BT initiative and I encourage all residents to vote for the general good of Alderley Edge.

Thanks for casting your vote Matthew but it wasn't actually me who raised awareness of this initiative. This article was posted by of one our members Steven Cozens.

We very much welcome guest posts from our members, provided of course they are newsworthy, local, and not being used for promotional purposes (i.e. advertorials).

Well thank you, Steven!

Thank you both for highlighting this and I too have voted.

The fact that the Alderley Edge exchange is not "unbundled" also means that we are exempt from all the cheapest broadband and phone packages available from the numerous providers. Just upgrading the exchange would help us all out whether or not the next generation broadband arrives...

50mbps is already available in the village via Virgin Media and they will be lauching 100mbps in 2011 according to a number of technical sites on the web.

As Paul says, Virgin Media already has fast broadband in the village, therefore I think Alderley will be one of the last on the list to be upgraded.

Sadly the Virgin connection doesn't reach the outskirts of the village :(

Might as well be in Outer Mongolia as at the bottom of Brook Lane!!!

Kirsteen

If you mail them here, they will do a feasability study. I know a number of people in the village who didn't think they could get their service but after mailing here, found they could

Thanks Paul!

I live on Talbot Road, so not exactly on the outskirts, and we can't get Virgin cable. I'm not sure how much of Alderley is provisioned for cable by Virgin but it is a long way from being universal. BT Infinity would be a great asset to the village.

I voted today as can't get Virgin cable on Brook Lane. But there are only 24 votes for Alderley Edge to date out of a possible 3500 - so I doubt the upgrade will happen any time soon!

Dawn, there was only 2 votes when the article was published at 4:30pm yesterday so 24 votes is a start. And we have until the end of December to get votes in. Please email and courage all your local friends and lets get Alderley superfast broadband! Myself and Lisa will do our best via the site and newsletter to give this prominent coverage.

Whilst a small part of the village can already get Virgin fast broadband they should vote as well as they are at the mercy of Virgin's pricing unless BT, and those ISP's that use its exchange, can also provide a competitive product.

I'm vote 25, please get voting! Superfast broadband mean better online gaming, faster download and better TV on demand!

Sorry!! I hadn't looked at the posting date & time!!

Come on all, only 56 votes so far.
Get on and vote.

Does anyone know if this initiative is limited to the Alderley Edge exchange only? We are part of Alderley Edge but have an 01565 (Mobberley) phone number. The best any ISP will guarantee here is 0.5 mbps! Alderley exchange provides a far superior speed already. I will welcome any progress towards the government achieving the 2 mbps universal minimum standard it has established.

A better option might be the village to establish its own high speed NGA access network to provide fibre to every home and business and a wireless network for those on the move. This is the sort of model being rolled out in many parts of Europe with more progressive administrations. Sadly here we have to wait for the commercial operators to decide its time for us to have a bit more bandwidth. If there are like minds then up for seeing how we could bring the local infrastructure into 21st century ... only took 100 years for the bypass .. so better start now other wise will be 22nd Century .