Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru / National Assembly for Wales

Pwyllgor yr Economi, Seilwaith a Sgiliau/ Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee

Seilwaith digidol Cymru/ Digital Infrastructure in Wales

Ymateb gan Halen Môn / Evidence from Halen Môn

Our Broadband / Fibre timeline

A few things to set the scene - we are approximately 1.5 miles from the closest exchange situated in the village Brynsiencyn. Our cables are overhead, old and set within trees. BT is our ISP

We use the Cloud for all our IT with servers based in Manchester, so therefore need a good speed to access and use the VPN effectively.

2013/ 2014	Keep checking the Superfast Cymru website for when we are able to access Fibre 'keeps saying soon', then it changes to December 2014 with speeds up to 80mbps but it then changes date again to February 2015.
February 2015	‘Fibre’ installed but with very low speeds (max 8mps) – I start to investigate why such slow speeds when promised 80mbps. Business call centres have no idea as information they show we should have speeds of up to 80mbps. I discover because we are so far from the box (I did not know this before I started my investigation) and there are no plans to make bring a box nearer.
March 2015	I contact Contact A of WAG and our local AM Rhun ap Iorweth for the first time.  We start to look at alternatives and are suggested we use a 4G box, as we have direct line of sight to the 4G mast over at Caernarfon and this is a more cost effective interim solution.
April 2015	Add a 4G router to our network.
May 2015	We add a further three 4G routers to our network
September 2015	Attend meeting chaired by Rhun ap Iorweth with heads of BT. They confirm that we can not get the speeds advertised and that information given to us is incorrect.  In late September we are informed, by Contact B, that we are on the list but it won’t be until next year now.
October 2015	In contact with Contact C from Anglesey County Council
December 2015	Conduct an ICT survey
January 2016	Contact B visit us here at Halen Mon, he then informs that a green box is going to be installed nearer to us, and building will start in March to go on stream June/July2016
April 2016	Contact D, Marketing Manager, Superfast Cymru informs us via Contact E ‘The cabinet that serves Anglesey Sea Salt premises has also been fibre enabled so they should be able to get speeds of around 80mbps’ It seems that Superfast Cymru have no idea what is going on.
May 2016	Contact B informs me there will be no green box  ‘I discussed this with the Openreach team and they advised me that the original survey had identified problems with the proposed route and now a new survey has been requested. No dates for deployment at the moment I’m afraid’ I lose the will to live with all this and go for the big guns.
June/July 2016	Become increasingly frustrated with a lack of answers – Rhun writes to the Head of BT and we look at other options again. Contact F writes to neighbours and our MP Albert Owen
August 2016	Contact F meets MP Albert Owen at Newborough. Still no response from Head of BT
October 2016	Our case has been escalated to the Chairman’s office (BT complaint reference XXXXXX) with the response below Hi Francess, Following on from my original email - Openreach have confirmed there are no further plans to provide fibre to the premises in the Anglesey area, I’m sorry that we are unable to provide your constituent  with the service and I understand how disappointed they must be. They do already have fibre to the cabinet broadband (FTTC) which is the optimum level of service we can offer at this time for single line broadband. As an alternative they could opt for a BT net which is a dedicated fibre line, the prices for this start at around £300 per month. Alternatively they could install a new line and broadband thus options have been advised to Nicki but she understandably does not wish to incur the additional costs. Contact B (Welsh Regional Manger BT) is chasing this up with the Superfast Cymru programme team to see what can be done as this customer has been in and out of the programme a few times. Again I am sorry that I wasn’t able to give you or your constituent better news, hopefully in the future Openeach’s plans might change.  Best regards, Contact G, Chairman & CEO Complaints Specialist Customer service – BPS, Telephone number XXXX XXX XXXX, Email: XXXXXXXy@bt.com
November 2016	Contact A visits us here at Halen Mon and we decide on Fibre to the Premises, Fluid Data are contacted and interest in the Ultrafast Voucher scheme is logged.
December 2016	Survey for FTTP takes place by Openreach engineer
19th December 2016	A standard fibre green box has appeared on the sea front (no more than 400 yards away) to utter amazement. Since it was only 2 months ago were told there were no plans.
January 2017	I will chase up as to whether this new green box has been connected up and powered. I am monitoring speeds.