Across the country exchanges and the cabinets that serve the customer base are being upgraded to replace copper wire with fibre optic cable. The technology is called FTTC, which stands for Fibre to the Cabinet, and it simply cuts out some of the slow bits of wire between the exchange and a cabinet and replaces them with super fast optical fibre. The slower wire is still used, however, to connect homes and businesses to the cabinet. Speed gains, however, can be dramatic depending on how close you are to a cabinet.
Bisham has been upgraded and is getting speeds from 18 to 25Mpbs. Hurley is getting even better speeds of 38 to 55Mpbs indicating that they probably have a cabinet in the village! I would assume that we could be somewhere in the lower end of that range if we ever got upgraded. That is a big improvement from our current speeds of 1Mpbs to 3.5Mpbs!
Unfortunately BT Openreach has decided that it is not economical to upgrade the cabinet (number 9) that connects us to our exchange at Littlewick Green. I am not clear who else is on this cabinet.
Perhaps even more unfortunately, Temple has also not been considered, at least as of yet, for government funding via the BDUK (Broadband Delivery United Kingdom) program. This program is intended to help bring super fast internet to areas, like ours, that would otherwise not be served. There is additional funding being planned and this is why it is so crucial that everyone in Temple register their interest on the SuperFastBerkshire website, and, if possible, also express their concerns to our local councilors for RBWM.
Temple will definitely not be served without us making some noise!
It should be noted that a representative of the Island approached BT about the costs of upgrading to Fibre. They were told that if we paid 54 thousand pounds AND had a sufficient number of residents sign up for Infinity, that we could have our own cabinet. Obviously this is not acceptable.
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