The Digital Villages Research Network

Thought you might be interested in the press release we received from Ian Swales MP for Redcar Office
Swales – Broadband not-spots bad for business
Today in Parliament local MP Ian Swales pressed the Government on poor broadband access for businesses. Ian raised the issue with Communications Minister Ed Vaizey MP in the Commons this morning. The Minister acknowledged that there are still patches where broadband connections are not good, but assured Ian that the government is investing a substantial sum for broadband roll-out. Ian commented, “Broadband not-spots are bad for businesses. High-speed internet access is essential for local firms to prosper. “Although high-speed broadband is available in most local residential areas, telecom providers have not rolled out high speed internet access to all our high streets and business parks. “I know some business people on Kirkleatham Business Park who have to leave their offices and go home to use the internet. South Bank Business Centre has similar problems. This is simply not good enough. “It is encouraging to see the Government is investing in high-speed internet, and I will continue to push for the roll-out of broadband access for businesses across Teesside
Swales – Broadband not-spots bad for business
Today in Parliament local MP Ian Swales pressed the Government on poor broadband access for businesses. Ian raised the issue with Communications Minister Ed Vaizey MP in the Commons this morning. The Minister acknowledged that there are still patches where broadband connections are not good, but assured Ian that the government is investing a substantial sum for broadband roll-out. Ian commented, “Broadband not-spots are bad for businesses. High-speed internet access is essential for local firms to prosper. “Although high-speed broadband is available in most local residential areas, telecom providers have not rolled out high speed internet access to all our high streets and business parks. “I know some business people on Kirkleatham Business Park who have to leave their offices and go home to use the internet. South Bank Business Centre has similar problems. This is simply not good enough. “It is encouraging to see the Government is investing in high-speed internet, and I will continue to push for the roll-out of broadband access for businesses across Teesside

And to think we got it bad!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20110123/ttc-slowest-broadband-area-revealed-e1d36ba.html

A really cold evening in Skinningrove Village Hall provided us with some really useful data on the true meaning of the word ‘community’
Originally eight people were invited to come along but due to illness we were reduced to six. This was not a problem as these six people certainly had enough to say and all great stuff. As the night went on it became more and more obvious that Carrie’s suggestion on the main theme jumped out at us. The group discussed in great detail how they felt the internet could help their village. The meeting concluded with the participants leaving with a real positive and determined attitude. This all resulted in some very amazing results but you will have to wait to hear about these later. We are planning a follow up meeting with this group for an update in the next 4 weeks. Real enjoyable night. Thank you Skinningrove. Look forward to our return.

Livivng and working from our home and totally being dependant on the internet to run our business we were wildy excited when we heard that BT is looking for rural areas in the country in which to install fibre optic braodband. Everyone of us are invited to click on to a link and then vote for your area. The most votes for each area wins. Simple eh? What they don’t tell you is that you have to have more than 1000 residencies from your exchange to qualify for this scheme. So, you may be able to appreciate our disgust and disappointment to learn that our exchange has less than 600 exchange connections. so, we don’t qualify. How can BT say they are wanting to take fibre optic into the rural areas when they exclude maybe half of them due to their so called “rules” May I remind BT what the Wiki definition of rural is ..”Rural areas are large and isolated areas of an open country with low population density.” Surely low population also means “not many houses?”

Another really great workshop delivered by Carrie. Interesting and as ever produced lots of discussion and ideas.
Afterwards it was Christmas with DVN and a great Destinations “spread” for lunch. Many thanks to Paul, Sue and all at Destinations who made this possible. It was also really good to see some people who are not usually at our Saltburn Meetings/Workshops. Good to see Eileen too. Looking forward to the Pilot Focus Group next Friday but if you are not going, have a great Christmas and I hope next year finds you all healthy and happy. Look forward to meeting up again in 2011.

As both a community researcher and small business person working from home, I completely understand the importance of digital inclusion.
It is a fact that the Moorsholm internet speed is very low yet we have been excluded from the BT pilot schemes to expand fibre optic broadband to rural areas on the grounds that we have less than 1000 homes connected to our local exchange.
We run a community newspaper in the area and totally rely on our internet to transmit the pages of the paper to the printer.
As a result of Moorsholm’s connection it took us 48 hours to do a job which should have taken one hour.
We are not the only business in our village, in fact we are one of many. How can small businesses working from home survive if we don’t get the support we need to enable us to be efficient, from the likes of BT?

Lively meeting yesterday (Tuesday 27 October) when most of CRs got together, with Carrie in Carlin How.

It was really great to see the Carlin How crew again and share thoughts and findings on the DVN idea and use of community websites.
See you all at Christmas and thank you Carrie.

Just got back in from a really great Data Analysis Workshop. Really good to be involved in this stage of the project. Thank you Carrie.

Steve and I went to Skinningrove this morning and completed the last 2 interviews! So just Moorsholm to finish and then all done…

Quick reminder to let you know that on September 11th, Loftus will be celebrating Heritage Day with lots of events. One of these events will be the project that Steve T has been working on with the help of Barry, Paul and many others, the Octorama Exhibition. We are going, so we hope to see some of you there.