Hi all,

Please just leave your name and a 'vote' for your support in this venture, either here or to broadband.glenbrook@gmail.com so we can collate the info for use in building a business case for fibre cable to be laid to our town.

This would allow us not only to have 'broadband' internet (and be able to start actually accessing the 'richer' content of the internet that every central community take for granted) but will also bring down the cost of our telephone calls, and could well do away with 'toll' calling entirely :)

UNFORTUNATELy, nothing will happen unless we ASK for it, so please.... join us in asking.

The Glenbrook Beach Residents & Ratepayers Association AGM on Monday 30th August 2010 was quickly completed by Chair Geoff Henderson before moving on to the broadband issue facing the community.  The issue is that for many in the community, Telecom have told them that they cannot have a broadband connection.

In doing this Telecom's customer services people can be quite blunt and not let residents know when they could expect a broadband connection.

Telecom's website (http://www.telecomwholesale.co.nz/maps) indicates the area is outside of their planned ADSL2+ coverage area, that there are no cabinets in the area and that an upgrade to the technology is "not applicable".

Solutions for Glenbrook Beach Road are either to take a business case to either of Telecom Wholesale/Telecom Chorus, or to a competing fibre provider, or to build the local network themselves.

If Telecom accept the business case, it is likely that any solution will be based on a Fibre-to-the-Node plus ADSL2+/VDSL over copper to the home product.  Data speeds would be a maximum of 50Mb/s for those within 300m of the fibre node, to normal broadband speeds of 256Kb/s for those 6km from the node.

If a competing fibre provider (such as Counties Power) accept the business case, it is likely that the solution will be a future-proofed Fibre-to-the-Premises installation for most residents.  Note that residents will incur a cost to get the fibre cable installed from the boundary to their home.

In both cases, it is possible that installation costs could be reduced by the community itself undertaking some of the ground works.

The third solution is for the community to provide the local network themselves.  Issues such as ownership of the assets, contracts for design, installation and maintenance will need to be worked through.

These are the solutions, and the call to action is for the community itself to build the business case, commencing with a list of people who would be likely to sign up for a high speed broadband connection.  What Enterprise Franklin will now do is to seek grant funding to cover the costs of employing a consultant to plan the network and build the business case.

high speed rural broadband is important because