What is happening?
Following extensive lobbying by eHampshire and Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, Openreach has confirmed that Basingstoke will be one of only two towns in the South East where the first phase of Next Generation Access Broadband will be installed.

This means Openreach will be upgrading the network that connects thousands of homes and businesses in certain areas of the town to the telephone exchange that serves them. New ‘next generation’ fibre connections will be installed which will provide higher speeds to deliver a wider range of online business and consumer broadband services.

What difference will this make?
The new fibre connections will mean homes and businesses in Basingstoke will be able to benefit from download speeds of up to 40 MEGs (with a guaranteed minimum of 15 MEG) and upload speeds of up to 5 MEGs, allowing you to:

• Download music tracks in less than 5 seconds
• Game online in HD
• Watch movies and sports events online in HD
• Video conference easily with friends and family

What’s more everyone in your household will be able to do want they want online at the same time.

* Currently the national average broadband speed is 2 – 2.5 MEG.

When will this start?
Openreach plan to install new cabinets in key areas of the town between now and the New Year.

What people will notice is that new cabinets will be installed in close proximity to the existing green telephone cabinets that you see on pavements.

A number of other factors have affected which areas were chosen and these include:

• the ability to guarantee a minimum of 15 MEG to the end user
• the number of lines to the cabinet
• location in relation to flood plains, conservation areas and electrical supply.

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and eHampshire will continue to lobby for more areas of Basingstoke and Deane to be included in the next phase of upgrades but we will need ‘hard’ evidence from businesses and residents to demonstrate where there is poor service and demand for better services.  Please make sure you use the postcode checker where you can also leave details of poor broadband service and register your desire for better broadband.

What will happen next?

Residents and businesses in the first upgrade phase will not be able to connect to the new and faster services straight away. Internet service providers will need to provide the broadband services that run over the new fibre connections.

So far, BT, Sky and Talk Talk have all signed up to provide new broadband packages and offers to homes and businesses in Basingstoke once the infrastructure upgrade is complete. However residents and businesses may also wish to check with their current telecommunications provider to see if they also have plans to establish such services.

Who are Openreach?

Openreach installs, services, supports and maintains the wiring, fibres and connections which link tens of millions of homes and businesses in Britain to their Communications Providers' networks. For more information on how Openreach is helping to deliver super fast broadband services visit their new microsite, Broadband Access for Everyone.