Dorset Agency Gets Broadband Research Funding

A North Dorset agency has been given funding totalling £10,000 to help them put forward their case to BT for the need for faster broadband speeds in their area.
The Communities Partnership Executive of North Dorset (CPEND) is hoping its campaigning will lead to BT upgrading the area’s telephone exchanges or even installing fibre optic broadband more quickly than proposed date of 2015.
Speaking to the Bournemouth Daily Echo, the Chairman of CPEND, Mark Hebditch said: “If we can get users to tell us their broadband speed and why they need it to be faster, there would be a much stronger case for improving it here”.
North Dorset currently looks set to miss out on BT’s installation of fibre optic broadband along the Dorset coast in time for the 2012 Olympic sailing in Portland and Weymouth.
News of the funding comes hot on the heels of problems with Bournemouth’s FibreCity project which has seen plans to provide the town with fibre optic broadband via cables in sewers scrapped following Wessex Water pulling out of the project.
The project is now going ahead via the more normal route of laying cables, which means more traffic disruption for the town as roads are dug up – And more problems for its local driving instructors trying to provide driving lessons in Bournemouth.
People living in North Dorset can share their broadband speeds with the CPEND agency by phoning 01258 489998 or emailing office@dt11forum.org.uk.