Parish Council Survey March 0- April 2011

Alfold Waverley	Maximum download speeds achieved in Alfold is 3.6 to 4.0 Mbps. Download speed and all internet communications almost impossible once the children come out of school and in the early evening when their parents get home – this improves after 10.00pm.	Alfold residents would benefit enormously from better broadband speeds. We are essentially a very rural community with poor infrastructure, traditional communication and transport facilities, so are very dependent on communication by email, internet shopping, video conferencing, skype, etc.	We believe the take up of a faster broadband service for an additional reasonable cost would be significant.	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
Buckland Mole Valley	Current view is that while speeds are sufficient to support general browsing, online shopping and email traffic that the range of activities and services that can be supported is severely restricted. Upload speeds are dismally slow and live streaming is not practical.	Opportunity for more effective access to the internet for individuals starting up and growing small businesses from home. Local businesses better able to meet customer expectations (e.g. local B&Bs, pubs, hotels). Reduction in car journeys as individuals become more able to rely on faster internet in the home(rather than have to travel to remote offices / access points	We believe there would be a good take up. A significant number of residents work partially or totally from home, there are a fair number of multi-generation households who would welcome a faster service and as cable is not available there is no alternative on offer.	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö	The Parish Council is willing to invest time and effort to support the SSBP and asks the project team to provide direction to ensure our enthusiasm can be effectively targeted.
Betchworth Mole Valley	Poor by modern standards, there is strong support for upgrading	This is key to retaining graphic artists etc working from home and other business in the Parish, and will enhance business opportunities to ensure the Parish does not become a backwater	The Race to Infinity placed Betchworth 214^th with 247 votes out of a possible 2500 connections (10%). This was without any local campaign to boost the figures	Ö	Ö	Ö		We are in the hinterland to Gatwick and close to Capel which is a similar rural parish which has already won an upgrade. We will be severely disadvantaged without this facility
Chiddingfold Waverley	Very variable service with the centre of village being 1.5 miles from Wormley exchange. Speed varies from a high of 5Mbs in the north of the parish, near the exchange, dropping to an average of 1.6Mbs in the centre of the village. In more rural areas to the south-east of the village, service is very slow and drops out of connection very frequently which makes it very difficult for businesses in Fisher Lane to operate effectively. To the west of the village there are several black holes with only a dial-up service. The service noticeably deteriorates around 4pm when children return from school and is often poor until late at night, when speeds pick up.	There are several local businesses that could have a bigger presence on-line if the speeds were higher and reliability better. It would also reduce the time and frustration that business users currently have due to slowness and unreliability of the service. Retaining businesses in the locality is a key objective of this parish. Chiddingfold is quite a high-end village with many expensive houses, mixed in with quite a large number of families with younger children. The population is technologically literate and expects to be able to download media of all kinds in their homes which they cannot do at present without unnecessary delay and frustration. This is not acceptable in a village of this size and type.	Most users are currently paying for an 8Mbs to 20Mbs service but are not getting anything like this speed. The first priority is for BT to install a fibre-optic service to the village so that the contracted speed can be met by ISPs. Subsequently, if a higher speed was reliably available there are sufficient numbers of reasonably affluent families available to anticipate a high take-up.	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö	The key to unlocking this problem appears to be BT, as they control the lines and they are the ones creating obstacles to faster roll-out by third party providers. Their current BT attitude of saying they are not going to provide service to 10% to 15% of rural areas in Surrey is totally unacceptable and shameful. They either need to make available their connectivity channels and telegraph poles to third party providers or, alternatively, they need to raise the finance to get the resources to do it themselves within an agreed timeframe. Surrey County Council should ensure that 100% roll-out is the target, and not 85%. The above is the approved response of Chiddingfold Parish Council. April 2011
Chobham Surrey Heath	Typical broadband speeds are 1-2Mbps in the residential areas. Contention can reduce this to <1Mbps for daytime and evening access.	Definitely! The village has a population of 3,800 in 1,700 households and a recent survey indicated that 1 in 6 households are home to a small business (~300 businesses in total). Chobham is very poorly serviced by public transport, making internet shopping, public service delivery, home working and online leisure very attractive options, particularly with increasing fuel costs.	Chobham is a relatively wealthy area and both residential and business take-up are likely to be very high, particularly as the cost of fuel continues to increase. High penetration would be relatively easy to achieve in the Settlement Area (80% of the village), particularly as and when broadband media services become widespread. Reaching some of the outlying properties might be more challenging.	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö	Connection reliability can be a real problem in rural communities such as Chobham, particularly over copper connections. Duct flooding, exposed connections at the top of telegraph poles and tree chafing can cause frequent disconnections, seriously affecting speed and reliability of service.

Cranleigh

Waverley

The service in Cranleigh appears slow and whilst adequate for low demand, there appears to be a lack of Broadband width for those with higher usage which impacts particularly on home workers and those in the more remote areas.

Businesses would appreciate any improvements to enable them to enhance and improve efficiency in their services.

To understand where there are particular 'black spots' it may be helpful to canvas the local senior school (Glebelands) as their pupils would be well informed on this or it may be helpful to have a more widespread survey. (Unfortunately the Parish Council does not have the resources to undertake the collection of this information).

A faster service would enable an increased use of technology and improve channels of communication generally, but it would be of greatest benefit to those who run businesses from home or work from home.

It could give greater flexibility to those whose work could be undertaken at home by reducing the number of journeys made. Enabling home working could improve the local economy and reduce our carbon footprint.

Access to the internet may become a significant consideration for those buying property in the area, therefore increased Broad band capacity retains attractiveness for residents as well as businesses.

The BT Broadband Mobile Roadshow showcased the use of faster Broadband to monitor health which would obviously be of benefit to some people, but again it should be an opportunity to improve life choices as this would not suit everyone.

Continued Þ

There is no evidence to support the take up of Broadband assuming that it was priced reasonably, however, general feeling is that any improvement would be greatly appreciated.

Continued Þ

Whilst improved Broadband will no doubt be of great benefit to our community it could threaten the wide range and wealth of independent shops for which our High Street is renown, as internet shopping becomes more accessible and convenient, so this should be handled sensitively.

The Parish Council does not have the capacity to get involved with co-ordination of information, to undertake any surveys, work with the SSBP to help deliver solutions or raise funds, however keeping an open dialogue, so that we are kept informed of developments would be very much appreciated so that if we can help in any way for the benefit of our community in the future (within our resources) we have the opportunity to do so.

Thank you for canvassing the views of Cranleigh Parish Council members. Please do not hesitate to contact us in the future

Dormansland

THIS IS THE VIEW OF A DORMANSLAND RESIDENT REGARDING BROADBAND SERVICE IN DORMANSLAND:

I have been doing some homework and have found out that the Lingfield BT telephone exchange has reached capacity. In short the exchange was only designed to have so many connections, but as we all know we have seen a huge increase in new houses in the surrounding areas, but the exchange has not grown to cope with the demand.

The situation is getting worse and BT is not doing anything about it

I think there would be a very positive response and a high level of take up of a faster broadband service

East Clandon

Guildofrd

A number of villagers* have approached the Parish Council complaining about low broadband speeds. A recent survey that had results from half the connected households shows that 75% of the village is in the bottom 25% of the UK. An increasing number of villagers work from home and this low speed is a hindrance to their work. Only one ISP has carried out LLU at the Clandon Exchange and they in fact have not demonstrated significantly better speeds.

*The BT Race to Infinity survey showed over 330 people signing up for superfast BB from a village with only 110 households!

1. Enable better working from home

2. Better village communications (We rely on a Village website and Google Group email )

3. Better village security (Neighbourhood Watch and villagers use the village email to instantly report suspicious activity)

Be able to set up an internet facility in the village pub that would allow teaching of villagers who are not currently internet users

As previously noted, there are a number of villagers who want to achieve better Broadband and who cannot at the moment even though willing to pay for a better service

There is a willingness in the village as a whole to improve the current Broadband experience. We already use the village website ( http://www.eastclandon.org.uk/ ) and the village email group to better communications. We want, as a rural village, to improve these facilities in the future.

We have already approached SSP (Paul Brocklehurst at SCC) to say we will act as guinea-pigs (trial) various forms of better BB provision with BT or other provider. Please put us at the top of the list to provide superfast BB as an experiment as to how to do this cheaply & quickly. We are willing to raise funds too to ensure we can get better BroadBand provision

East Horsley

Guildford

East Horsley

Guildford

(Cont)

The following are the views of Councillors as we have not conducted any systematic survey of residents’ opinions.

The current service is the conventional data over copper phone wire, sourced from the BT Exchange in East Horsley. It exhibits the known design issue of broadband speed degradation with distance from the exchange with a 50% decrease over 3Km and very variable achieved download speeds. There has also been loss of service on occasions over the last six months. Download service speeds experienced by Councillors range from 1000kbps up to 5000 kbps but achieved speeds vary widely by time of day.

Some Councillors feel that this is acceptable for present applications (however ‘fast’ internet offerings of 20-40 Mbps and associated services such as realtime download of HD Video are not currently available in the village for local residents to have experienced).

Others Councillors believe that that if the explosion of Internet activity in the past decade is continued in the next, then current speeds will rapidly become inadequate and the local community will be disadvantaged culturally, socially, and economically if it does not have the same access to future mainstream services as more urban centres of population.

About 25% of all households on our local 01483 28xxxx exchange voted in the recent BT “Race to Infinity” promotion.

1) The village would be more attractive and viable as a centre for small businesses

2) Local residents would be enabled to keep abreast of internet capability growth (and associated economic, leisure, and social developments) over the next decade and not be disadvantaged or become second-class citizens by virtue of living in the country.

3) Faster and more intuitive services (eg videophone) would encourage older members of the community to make more use of the internet.

4) Multi user/ heavy usage locations eg larger families, small businesses, would also benefit from faster delivery of current web services.

In a community such as East Horsley, the level of disposable income is such that any improvement in the IT infrastructure will be taken up by a significant majority of the population. Although there is some reluctance among older residents to engage with “computers”, as the Facebook generation gets older, computer literacy will approach 100% of the population, and homeworking and telecommuting will become more widespread.

Willing to consider raising local funds as a Council but no consensus currently amongst Councillors in favour of contributing (the cost required may be out of all proportion to the resources the Parish Council could practically make available).

The likely period of investment and service provision will be 10 – 20 years. Any decisions should be taken in the light of what internet capability will be in 20 years time, not the current capability. Many likely future uses of the internet are probably not known at present but will almost certainly require greater internet performance than at present. Broadband speed will be a fundamental building block for future performance.

Hopefully higher speeds will be provided by a technology that does not suffer speed loss over short to medium distances. This will be more important in rural areas (so that everyone in a spread-out rural community will enjoy the same service) than in urban areas where communications nodes are already close together.

Ewhurst Waverley	More people will be able to access Broadband in an area where the speeds are notoriously bad, or non existent in some cases	See above – some areas have no broadband service, majority have very slow speeds and capacity	The likelihood would be considerable take up of faster service	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ewhurst has a group set up to coordinate the local requirements Ewhurst & surrey Hills Broadband – www.ewhurst-broadband.com
Hambledon Waverley	Less than 2 Mb/s (for the lucky ones) so not even the residents are particularly happy, let alone the businesses. It is worse for those on the 01483 exchange than on 01428	Working from home would be far easier (and there is an increasing tendency for this) and Skype (again, increasing use) would be improved	People would probably expect to see speeds increased within existing pricing structures; to be disadvantaged because we are rural would not go down at all well.	Ö	?	?
Hascombe Waverley	Residents have reported that they find download speeds much faster in the morning and late evening than during the afternoon. The max average speeds achieved is 3.6 to 4.0 Mbps, despite being with ISPs who claim to provide faster speeds. Those who use gaming sites have complained of their sites locking up or dropping the link at certain times of the day. Residents with children who need the internet for school homework are concerned that their children may be disadvantaged by low broadband speeds in Hascombe.	Business users in particular would benefit from faster broadband speeds as video conferencing is often a requirement to enable them to work from home and not currently satisfactory in Hascombe. Residents have said they would be able to work from home more often if they had a fast, reliable broadband service. Residents would like faster download times for music and films. An improved gaming experience.	All of those who responded said they would like a faster broadband service and most would pay an additional reasonable cost provided a minimum standard could be guaranteed.	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
Headley	Very slow – typical measured speeds are under 2Mb/s; I have just measured at a quiet time and got 1.9Mb/s download, 0.6 upload. Many locations get significantly slower download speeds. Residents find everyday use frustrating & cannot effectively use video-streaming	More home-working (reducing road traffic & carbon emissions). Residents (especially the elderly) would gain experience & become more computer literate, making them able to do home shopping (& access on-line library services etc) reducing dependence on our poor bus service	Fairly high – our local computer club has had high uptake of (mainly elderly) residents who would want to put their skills to better use	Ö	Ö	Ö		Recent cuts to services such as mobile libraries & uncertainty over rural bus provision make rural areas more dependent on decent broadband. The size of our community means that a charge to the Parish precept would not be an effective way to raise funds
Limpsfield	Our survey cannot be said to be exhaustive or totally representative because we do not have the resources. Only one positive comment was made and that was by a SKY user. A wide range of providers are providing a service that disappoints users – generally simply too slow. The semi-rural areas were most critical. Businesses who relied on the usual suppliers we desperate to have a faster service. There is real frustration.	The obvious advantages of faster download speeds and better use of the information available on the internet. Those who work at home are frustrated by the download times for documents and graphics. One commented - probably less coffee drunk as sitting around watching downloads progress would no longer be necessary!	Cost is obviously and issue and unknown at this time. No-one felt a reasonable price would be an obstacle to take up					At this time it is difficult to say how the Parish council would help, we are about to change personnel. Slow broadband is a real issue and we would help in any effective way that we can

Normandy Guildford	It is considered to be too slow	It would be to the advantage of both business users and personal users	100%.	Ö	Ö	Ö	?	The answer to the last section of the previous question would be dependant upon the result of the Parish Council elections due to be held on 5 May 2011, and, would need to be voted upon by the new Council, it is not therefore possible to answer the question at this moment
Salfords and Sidlow	It is getting progressively slower and during peak hours the service is poor. For businesses who rely on the internet this must be critical as downloads are slow and websites often take a considerable time to build. People are getting fed up. In the south of the parish the broadband service is slow due to the fact that it is situated at the end of the BT line from the Horley exchange.	Faster internet speed so less time waiting for sites to respond and downloads to complete. Overall if faster broadband was available more businesses may be attracted to the area (particularly in all the empty industrial units) For some small businesses good local resources are critical in their choice of location and fast broadband would be one of these. To enable more people to work effectively from home or at offices that are away from main conurbations	This is difficult one particularly as times are hard, but we believe people would take up the service if it was only a little more expensive. Two households said they would	Ö	Ö			One household have been tracking when BT (their provider) will be bringing their high speed service to this area and initially it was March, then April now it has been pushed out to June
Ripley	Less than 1 Mbps & we have just conducted a survey showing a strong desire to support faster broadband services.	Business will be able to remain rural but operate in a wider field. Households can make use of up to date technology – i.e. i player etc.	We have had over 100 responses from 800 households (Approx – survey not closed yet)	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö	We have started on this project in conjunction with a local firm. They may have a good rural solution.
Send	One resident said ‘Useless’ Another resident said ‘I would certainly support anything to get faster broadband in this area as it is abysmally slow’Another resident said ‘As a home worker I really do find the speed a real trial and anything that can be done to make it better would be welcomed Another comment: The Parish is on the edge of the Clandon Exchange. When I started with broadband about 5 years ago I had speeds of up to 1.5 Mb, now it is below !.0 Mb.This is presumably due to the increase in numbers receiving broadband, I gather this is general in this area. This is inadequate to receive or transmit large files	Very important for business & people who work from home Faster internet connections would aid businesses both large companies and the home workers who do most of their business through the internet. The ability to cope rapidly with large files quickly for businesses and home workers, saving time & money. For households the ability to watch films & other new media.	High In a reasonably affluent rural village, the take up is expected to be high. We recognise that the present service is very unsatisfactory and firmly support an improvement in broadband service.					With the access to all households through Ripley & Send Matters magazine it would be quite easy to obtain information on existing speeds & potential demand.
Tatsfield	The quality of service varies significantly according to the distance from BT’s Biggin Hill exchange, the state of the (largely overhead) cables and the level of the noise on the line. A number of residents have complained to the Parish Council over the past few years about speeds as low as 250Kb as well as about interruptions to service. In 2010 the Parish Council distributed a paper questionnaire which went to all 700 households in the parish. It was also possible to respond via the Parish Council’s website. Only 22 responses to the survey were received. Of these, three expressed satisfaction with their broadband service. Nineteen households out of 700 were concerned enough to report their dissatisfaction with the service received.	Higher speeds can be expected to benefit local businesses and people working from home, but continuity of service is just as important. Higher speeds would give domestic users access to a wider range of entertainment services as well as improve access to the internet for study and leisure use.	The Parish Council’s survey arose partly from contact with a local company specialising in bringing faster broadband to rural communities. The aim was to help establish the potential demand for such a local initiative in Tatsfield. 18 households were willing to pay £30 to register interest in a scheme to form a local company to provide an improved service. In view of the very limited response, it was agreed at the October 2010 Parish Council meeting that should the private company likely to be involved in the project wish to take the matter further, the Council would help provide information about any further proposals. In view of the minimal response to the Parish Council survey, no further action has been taken. BT has recently been telling customers with a typical speed of 700Kb to expect this to rise to 2.5Mb within a few months. Customers are likely to be hesistant about entering into alternative deals at this stage.	Ö	Ö	?
Whyteleaf	Slow connection speeds, with the connection frequently dropping irrespective of ISP. If changing to a new supplier it usually takes several attempts before the connection is made and working	1) Improved user experience and efficiency at the local school, in businesses whether home or office-based and for private individuals. 2) The ability to use a wider range of on-line services.	Significant, dependant on cost, but as it becomes the norm cost will become less of an issue.	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö	Contribution dependant on cost. The poor service is a major concern for Whyteleafe Business Association members
Witley	This is a large parish and broadband provision varies across the area from good to inadequate. Consequently some businesses and residents are satisfied and others are very dissatisfied. Under current plans, we believe that the 01483 area is likely to be provided with superfast broadband as part of the BT Infinity project , whereas the 01428 area will not.	· Giving all residents the opportunity to engage with the digital society, including internet shopping, banking, consultations and research. · Enabling more residents to work from home. · Allowing more small business to grow in the area and opening up new markets for them. Enabling residents and businesses to take advantage of likely future developments in media, health care, education and governance that will require fast internet	Obviously this would depend on the actual cost, but we believe that take up would be high.	Ö	Ö	Ö		We are planning to start to get a better picture of current provision and demand by asking people who come to our three village fetes in the next few months, by posting something on our website and by including something in our next Parish newsletter.
Wonersh	Service varies markedly with distance from Bramley Exchange. An informal survey suggests that most businesses and home workers view the service as poor. A few are content. Some deliberately commute to achieve an acceptable service. General users are split about 50/50 between those who thibk the service is poor and those who are broadly satisfied.	Faster download/upload of large files Improved video streaming/video conferencing Distance learning New services e.g. Telemedicine Cloud services	Informal survey suggests 77%. BUT this was a self-selecting group so actual take up is likely to be lower	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
Wotton	Broadband service is patchy and very poor around the Leith Hill area	The PC can communicate better with residents They can be better informed via broadband access to internet websites	Relatively high, however the area is very usual and there is not a great deal of optimism that the service will be improved					The Council has very limited resources to become involved in any way