Broadband - Please register your interest and apply for your vouchers now!

[Admin]

Following the article in the September Pen Paper, I am pleased to confirm that we have over 30 households who have registered their interest with Wessex Internet.  Wessex are currently looking at the most cost effective way of getting their infrastructure to us.

The intention is to connect up to the areas of the village with the slowest speeds first; starting with the area around the Church and then expanding to Pear Ash Lane and Underhill.

Please make sure you have registered your interest with them at www.wessexinternet.co.ukuk in order to ensure you are ‘on their radar’ for a quote.

Most importantly we have just heard that the Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) voucher scheme of £500 per household towards infrastructure costs is coming to an end on 30^th November 2016.

If you have not already done so, please apply now at www.connectingdevonandsomerset.co.uk   You will be given a code number which can be claimed by Wessex Internet in due course once you are connected.  If you do not claim your voucher this scheme will be closed and the money returned to central government, so there is nothing to lose at this stage.

The vouchers will be valid until the end of the scheme on 31^st March 2017, so they need to be ‘taken up’ by a provider by then.

Please let Geoff Parcell or Alex Juckes know if/when you have registered your interest and applied for your vouchers – so we can keep track of progress.

The criteria for the vouchers is a speed of less than 2Mb, but we understand that even with speeds higher than this you may still be eligible (up to about 4 or 5Mb).  Many of us have had slightly increased speeds since BT upgraded the phone exchange in Bourton, so if you are borderline, but get refused it is possible to query the decision by providing a ‘screen shot’ from your computer proving your speed yourself.  If you need any assistance with this, please do let us know.