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Broadband Problems in East Anglia - Home, Business and Home Business - What Can You Do?

Do you want better/faster/more reliable broadband?

Now is your chance to register your requirement with EEDA (the East of England Development Agency) - they have money which they are supposed to be using to establish the level of demand for broadband in the region and to prepare a bid for another tranche of funding to support regional broadband initiatives. The EREBUS web site is their initial attempt to measure that demand, so it's important that you register - tell them where you live/work by putting in your post code and then say what you want (and this needs to be in detail and not just "I want better broadband" - see below)  

Go to Erebus

Unfortunately it isn't a particularly helpful site in terms of suggesting what you might want so here are some suggestions that you might wish to use in the message area:

"I have children of school age who need to use the Internet for their homework. Many of the sites they visit have video content and this doesn't work properly. I need at least 5Mbit/sec broadband for video and possibly faster for interactive sites."

"I work from home and need to connect to my company's main computer to exchange large data files. Currently this takes many hours to do so I need at least 2Mbit/sec broadband to enable me to do my work."

"I want to use an Internet phone but the calls are very poor quality and keep breaking-up. I need at least 2Mbit/sec broadband for this and if I'm trying to download data at the same time it really needs to be much higher"

"I have a small, home based business and rely on the Internet for communicating with my customers and for e-commerce. I need at least 10Mbit/sec broadband to allow me to work efficiently."

Well, you get the idea I hope. Ask for a decently high figure (2Mbit/sec minimum) because inevitably we will get less than we ask for! The focus will be on 'essential' uses like business and education so putting in that you need better broadband to access the BBC i-Player to get last night's episode of EastEnders will not really help the cause (even if it's true). Also remember that if you use the Internet for business as well as pleasure then you get two entries - use them both.

And finally, please forward this email to all your friends, relatives, colleagues, associates etc who live or work in this region and encourage them to register - if we swamp EEDA with our response they might just get the message that we really, really do need better broadband.

You may have noticed that DBF has it's own monthly column in The Diss Express, 'Minding Your Business' by Jenna Cox of Articulate HLC, DBF media officer. Keep up to date with what's happening with business and with DBF.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

On 7th July, there was a Public Consultation on the proposed changes to the Fire Service in Diss and the surrounding area as part of the ongoing countywide review. DBF was represented by committee member Ed Nottingham of Merrick Hill Insurance who reported that:

The discussion were informal with members of the fire service around the room and approximately 15 attended.

For Diss, there are two proposed changes:

The replacement of one of the current fire engines in Diss with a "rural fire engine" which would be all wheel drive and designed to deal with field/brush fires.

The loss of two retained firefighters as the new engine has two less seats in it.

There are further changes to the county service, although they were at pains to say it would not affect the cover here in Diss.

However, this consultation has been in process for some time and does not take into account the current coalition government's much-publicised budget cuts. As such, the above is all subject to change; with that in mind we should also pay attention to the following:

Statistically, Diss does not warrant two fire engines.
Geographically, in terms of the cover provided, it does but this is a fine line.
Thetford, also statistically, does not warrant a full-time crew during the day.

This was spoken about in the room but is not included in the consultation. Outside the Corn Hall were representatives from the Fire Brigades Union, and these were the items they were keen to speak about – obviously with the potential loss of jobs they felt it would lead to a reduction in their capabilities for protecting the public.

A copy of the full plan is available online if you want to view it.  Just Click Here