Hi All, I have on and off for the past couple of months, been in weekly contact with BT Openreach about our broadband. I have had our petition rebuffed by so many different people and departments, only for have it escalated further up the chain. The latest response from Openreach is pasted below. I have found out that the area that we are in, is in the "grey" not to be upgraded area that neither BT Openreach will do anything about, nor will BDUK (broadband UK, see this link: http://www.connectingdevonandsomerset.co.uk ) The area that is affected is quite large, covering not only our area but also the following: cannington lane, Quarry lane, Gore lane, the A3052 from the Shrubbery caravan park, down to Humble Point, Pinhay Cliffs, Ware Cliffs, Ware lane, Shire lane, Whalley lane, Crogg lane, Tappers Knapp, from the B3165 at the Black Dog all the way along to Church Street, Mill Lane, Pound Lane, Springwell road all the way to the top of Whitty Hill, from just beyond Harcombe Cross all along Harcombe road, and Rhode lane. So you see quite a large area indeed, with quite a few homes & businesses no doubt. I can only suggest that we change the petition to now include those areas & that we get people in those areas to sign the petition as well. So, to that end, could all of you that know of others in the areas mentioned above, please encourage people to sign the petition, I will in time, go back to BT Openreach with more signatures, to try and force them to re-visit the very disappointing refusal below. Best Regards, Ed Blundell <--start of BT Openreach Response--> Dear Mr Blundell Thank you for your further email of 23rd February regarding the broadband speeds to the Woodhouse Lane, Uplyme area. I fully appreciate the frustration felt by yourself and the other 80+ residents regarding the slow speeds of broadband. As previously advised by Barbara Chadwick in BT Wholesale, the speeds experienced are due to the distance from the serving exchanges of Lyme Regis and Axminster. Openreach would only look to upgrade our network if it is below standard, showing high volumes of faults. In this case, we therefore are not upgrading any network in this area at present. If we did replace any cabling, there would likely be no noticeable improvements to the area. With regards to fibre broadband, I can confirm that the cabinets serving the area have been upgraded with fibre via our commercial roll out programme. It may help if I explain that for FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) service to work reliably, the cable length of the copper line from the fibre cabinet to the premises needs be up to 1.5km. Anything over this limit, there’s marked degradation in performance and FTTC won’t work reliably. Unfortunately, the Woodhouse Lane area is approximately 3.5km away from the nearest cabinet. This is why fibre broadband is currently not available. We’ve been clear in our communications that when an exchange is upgraded, not everyone will be able to get the fibre service. We continue to work on technical solutions (for example, Fibre to the Premises, extend the existing fibre cable route or deploying alternative technology), but these can be economically challenging and will require public funding. I therefore suggest that you contact the CDS BDUK project team to see if they have any plans or solutions for your area. Further information is available at the following link: http://www.connectingdevonandsomerset.co.uk/ Situations like this are relatively rare and if it helps, we’ll consider offers of private funding as a joint investment with BT. This has enabled us to deploy fibre broadband to communities where public funding isn’t available. The only condition being that the cabinet is connected to an exchange which has already been enabled – If the local community is interested and able to secure private funding, then you can e-mail us at ngb@openreach.co.uk. Thank you again for taking the time to write to us and although I appreciate this isn’t the answer you are looking for, I hope you understand that we have a real commitment to delivering Superfast fibre to the people and businesses of Britain. I’m sorry that we have not yet been able to provide you and other residents in the area with this service and we really do hope that this position will change in the future Kind regards, Graeme Hughes BWA721 Openreach High Level Complaints Customer Issues | Openreach Web: www.openreach.co.uk