Looking at the "new" Rural Community Broadband Fund handbook this week, I got to thinking about what it all means for us simple bumbling poor people with don't live in London Village and don't have everything provided on a gold, platinum & diamond encrusted plate.
Not everyone who lives & works in London Village gets this treatment of course - there are the proles who have to make their way through the myriad of interconnecting tunnels that apparently link London Village to the hovels in the sticks that these people are forced to call "home". Some of these poor proles (apparently) are suffering the same lack of broadband that we simple folk suffer from living in the back of beyond (but who don't have an Olympics to run and beam out to the world next year).....
So, back to the RCBF handbook. You read it, panic, read it again to try and grasp what the heck it's trying to say, panic again, try and work out how much it will cost you as a community using the enclosed "data book", panic again, ring everyone you know and ask "do we live in the last 10%", go to the pub and then bang in a EOI having done the maths on the back of a fag packet down the boozer with the village idiot's dog at the last minute.
Laughable I hear you say!
Well lets work it out.
You have 61days to put an EOI together, minus the Christmas & new year period (including Christmas eve & new years eve), minus weekends ('cos who works on a Saturday in gov. and the posties don't deliver on a Sunday...),so that leaves you with 46 working days to come up with an EOI that will be accepted.
But in those 46 working days, you have to attend Christmas functions with work, shop for presents and visit your relatives..... So you can knock another 10 days off that figure which leaves 36 working days.
36 working days!.
Then you have school plays, carol concerts and babysitting whilst your other half goes off and does the works Christmas do's, their shopping and whatever else they have to do. That's another 15 working days gone, which leaves you with 21 days.
21 working days!
So far you've lost 40 days of the EOI period, and that's just one member of a group working on it! Factoring other members of a group in will give similar outcomes.... and that doesn't include trying to find an alternative venue for your meetings when the one you normally use is hosting some Christmas function or other.... By now you will probably be looking at a time scale of 10 working days if you're lucky.
10 working days!
Wow. That's a long time. Or a short time. Or no time at all.
You call a meeting of your group. It snows, and nobody can make it because the rural unclassified and minor roads are blocked by ice & snow because they haven't been gritted (typical rural area). You lose another day.... You try again. The village hall you booked can't open because the oil delivery can't make it to top up the tanks that run the heating system because the roads haven't been gritted etc (we don't have mains gas in rural areas as it costs too much to connect everyone)..... You try this again & again, then have a brainwave! We'll have a Skype meeting! Only problem is, no-one else can use Skype as they live in the last 10% and don't have broadband! So now you have just 5 working days left.
5 working days
That's 1 working week! 1 working week to get a credible EOI together and sent off in the post. You have 1 day in the week that everyone can meet on.
1 working day
You all meet in the pub. Why? It's the only place that has food & warmth after the Asda & Tesco delivery drivers suffer the same fate as the oil tanker driver.The village pub has LPG gas tanks for cooking and a proper log fire. And beer. Real ale with a head on. Not that flat or gassy stuff they drink in London Village......
This is why you will end up banging in a EOI having done the maths on the back of a fag packet down the boozer with the village idiot's dog at the last minute........
I can only hope that this never happens, but have a feeling that it will in some areas. Why the EOI stage 1 was put out at this time of the year is beyond me, as it will do more damage to peoples chances of getting the broadband they desperately need in really rural areas that do suffer because they are so rural & remote.
But.
ReplyDeleteEven if against all the odds you do manage to write it, I don't think it will make a happorth of difference, because whatever funding you 'might' be lucky enough to get you will earn by jumping through administration hoops for ever and a day and still not get an internet connection at the end of it.
I think the answer is people power. Lets JFDI ourselves eh?
If enough folk think the same we can build the network of our dreams, at a price we can all afford. It will be ours, and it will mean our hard earned money stays local, instead of floating off to that london place you speak of to pay the head of bt £2.5 million (last year with bonuses).