CAMPAIGN: When Will All of Somerset Get Superfast or Even DECENT Broadband?

 

Standing up for residents
and businesses

Somerset Independents is campaigning for better broadband for Somerset residents. Why?

Because our residents and our businesses deserve it. And despite broken promise after broken promise by the County Council and Government, Somerset still suffers from poor broadband in too many areas. Their latest promise in late December, is likely to end in more disappointment.

Never mind superfast broadband*, too many households suffer from not even having decent broadband**!

Figures published by the House of Commons Library prove it. They are based on the data provided by OFCOM, the Regulator for communication.

For example, the figures below show how terrible the lack of decent broadband is in the Constituency of Somerton and Frome, currently represented in Parliament by Conservative MP David Warburton.

According to those figures:

• The average download speed was 42.8 Mbps (Mega bits per second) in Somerton and Frome, just less than 25% slower than for the South West of England as a whole. It is 30% slower than the average download speed for the whole of the UK.
• Superfast broadband was available for only 81.5% of Somerset's premises, lower than 91.9% for the South West and 94.8% for the UK. Put another way, 18.5% of households do not have superfast broadband connectivity.
  
• Just under 10% (9.4%) of premises cannot get decent broadband. This is three times as many as just 3.1% for the South West and five times as bad as for the UK.
  

When the averages are broken down into smaller areas within the Constituency, it is even worse. 

Plotted on a map, you can see vast areas with terrible broadband. About the only area that is OK is the northern part of Frome, an urban area.

Mr Warburton has made statements in Parliament and on his website about his "concern" on the failure to deliver.

But he does not need to look far for who has failed to deliver.

It is his own Conservative Party's failure to deliver broadband in Somerset. They've been in power at the County Council for years.

And it is his own Conservative Party's Government's failure to deliver. They've been in power for a decade, since 2010.

His Party's failures might explain why Mr Warburton appears to have done little about it. 

As noted by the Parliament-watching website, TheyWorkForYou.com, Mr Warburton only sometimes differs from his Party and only occasionally rebels against the Conservative Party. And as also shown there, and as found by our own research, Mr Warburton hardly spoke in Parliament in 2020, with very long gaps of months between appearances. 

Even so, speaking in Parliament is just words. Somerset Independents prefers to see ACTION, not just words from Somerset's elected representatives.

Let's not forget, Mr Warburton is one of several Somerset Tory MPs who tried to defend the indefensible on Free School Meals - his Government's failure to sign up for it - and then his humiliation when they were forced to u-turn.

So he is likely to not provide much in the way of exposure of his Government's, and his County Council's failures.

Leader of Somerset Independents Andrew Pope, says:

"I live in a rural area. My broadband is provided via copper wires that run on telegraph poles running to an exchange miles away. We are at the end of the line and the broadband is only ADSL. I need decent broadband to run my online business from home. And if my business is to expand, I need superfast broadband.

BT Openreach is so bad that when our line was struck by lightning and the shock came into our house, they failed to investigate what happened, or to visit our property to check the safety.

In fact, it was impossible to get them to give any meaningful response to our concerns. We were told to phone India. The call handlers had no idea about our area and they ignored our problem. We even took it the Ombudsman, who were useless.

So we switched provider. But that has not changed the terrible infrastructure that is so out-of-date.

We had a public meeting at our village hall, with Truespeed giving us empty promises. It was only if we signed up, and if all other villages signed up between us and where Truespeed have their cables already installed. We have no idea when, or if, it will be provided by them, by land. Now the County Council have named them as a new partner. But it is likely that they will fail to deliver, as the others before them, did.

So I am supporting the Voneus satellite broadband that is being rolled out in rural areas. The latest application that I am aware of is in Pilton. I have supported their planning application, because I believe that Voneus have tried their utmost to minimise the visual impact, rejecting sites due to genuine concerns from local residents.

The history of the Mendip Hills shows that, if you cannot go under, you have to go over. But specious and fake objections to technology, such as happened with some people and vested interests when the trains were installed through the Hills two centuries ago - cannot stop genuine progress. Populism cannot stop genuine progress for society as a whole.

 

Somerset Fib Dems Fibbing About 5G

But Liberal Democrat councillors in Somerset like Councillor Liz Leyshon and Lib Dem Bath MP Wera Hobhouse have even used pseudo-science to oppose 5G, just like the Conservative Government has with Covid-19, to justify their populist vote grabbing. To object to masts for visual impact reasons is one thing, but to speak at meeting after meeting in a Luddite way to oppose technology to catch votes, is another.

Somerset Independents will be supporting the rollout of technology that helps residents and businesses survive and hopefully thrive."

* Superfast broadband is defined by OFCOM as "The percentage of lines that were capable of receiving download speeds of at least 30 Mbps in May 2020".

** Decent broadband is defined by OFCOMS as "Premises below the Universal Service Obligation - those unable to receive 10 Mbps download speed or 1 Mbps upload speed".