Thanks to everyone in Long Wittenham who’s already signed up for Gigaclear. The deadline to get a third of the village signed up is 10 July and we’re very close to the number of households we need to get Ultrafast Broadband in Long Wittenham – we’re almost there! broadband in Long Wittenham.
We still need more houses to commit
Gigaclear need a third of properties in Long Wittenham to sign up before they will give the green light to installing ultrafast broadband. So, if you haven’t already done so, then please do take the time to explore the impact it would have on you and on the village.
Why Gigaclear broadband?
Here are some of the reasons why many of those who have signed up have done so.
Have you suffered from landline service interruptions, been without a phone or broadband connection for a few hours or even, in some cases a few days, or complained about BT’s sneaky price increases?
Get Gigaclear and these will be a thing of the past. With their own network that doesn’t use the BT cabinet infrastructure there’ll be no suggestions of inter-company rivalry or sabotage as we have had in the past.
Do you have a poor mobile signal at home, maybe having one hot spot in the house as the one place the signal reaches you?
Put that behind you; introduce your mobile phone (and your visitors’ phones) to your Gigaclear router and enjoy high audio.
Do you use Skype to talk to far-off friends but suffer pixelated images and poor sound quality?
Skype over fibre won’t suffer like that!
Do you miss recording your favourite TV programme and the find the buffering makes it unwatchable over iPlayer?
Distant memories!
Do you realise that before long more and more TV broadcasts will be made over the internet and not via an aerial or dish?
BBC3 is probably going that way soon according to Radio 4 yesterday. And watching two programmes on two TVs may not be so easy with poor broadband service over copper. What will happen when you are sharing that bandwidth with neighbours?
Do you think you should wait for BT as ‘they are promising fibre broadband too’?
Well yes they are but NO, they’re not in the near future! BT will be putting fibre to the cabinet (outside the Henderson’s) but from what they have told the Parish Council, this won’t be for at least a year. From there to every home it’ll be over the existing copper cables with its inherent problems and speed degradation over distance and age. That won’t change for at least a decade or more. In contrast Gigaclear brings fibre into your home – so wherever you are in the village, you’ll get the same ultrafast speed – and it will be as early as this autumn!
Do you think ‘I don’t work from home’ or if I do I don’t need access to files, documents etc?
Not now you don’t but is that statement futureproof?
Are you thinking ‘it must cost more than BT’?
It may do, but if so, it’ll only slightly more (e.g. a fiver a month). But most people paying BT for line rental and broadband are paying more per month than the Gigaclear base price of about £45 (and that gives you 50Mbps!).
‘I have just renewed my BT contract so I’ll wait until the 12 months is up.’
That seems a good idea but if not enough sign up then there won’t be a Gigaclear service to sign up to! To make it easy Gigaclear will delay the start of your service (and all payments) until the end of your BT contract.
Furthermore, when it comes to selling houses in a year or two there is likely to be a new class distinction in Oxfordshire: ‘connected villages’ and ‘unconnected villages’. The ‘connected villages’ will be attractive and open to everyone looking for a new home; the ‘unconnected villages’ will rule themselves out of a property search for the people who want to work from home occasionally and so avoid daily commuting, those with a family of teenage kids and those who want to watch TV when it suits them (and maybe legally skip paying the TV licence fee!). That will be a growing sector of the market.
And finally maybe you’re thinking you will have to change your computer or learn new keyboard routines
(no you won’t!), or lose your landline number or get a new email address (only in very rare cases).
If you have any questions, you can talk to Gary Brokenshire at Gigaclear on 07747 273936 or by email: gary.brokenshire@gigaclear.com (in my experience, they don’t do high-pressure selling).
