Activities relating to agriculture and transport must be excluded but there may be other activities such as B&B which would qualify.

Find out the demand from business and residential users then ascertain their bandwidth requirements.

It is best to get a consensus on where to locate poles (max of 15m high). Users present felt the service should be available to all Leighterton Exchange users.

Transmitters are in accordance with European guidelines and are 10 times less powerful than mobile phones.

Would provide as much bandwidth as necessary, initially 2mb, using 2nd Generation SDSL WiFi 802.11b (2.4Ghz), which can be increased to 4Mb. There would be an incoming 4-32Mb connection. The client has to be within 1.5km of the pole and the receiver (a box on the wall 8” x 8” x 2”) has to be in line of sight. Connects to cat 5 network wiring. Within a year or two WiMax will be available providing up to ~33Mb.

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is available as an alternative to BT, requiring additional software but providing additional functionality, e.g. you could have separate phone numbers; and you could roam within the limits of the pole.

Advice would be available to subscribers on equipment and software options within the home/office.

They DO advise the use of firewalls, virus protection and spyware but DO NOT push heavy encryption because this slows transmission down.

Their first site is going live at Woodbury, Devon, in December, which we could see.

Support is available 24/7 from 6 staff.

Richard Goodenough reported that he believed the Leighterton Exchange Area to be:

which BT says has some 215 household and business [users]. BT also says that under their previous broadband registration scheme that closed in April 2004 there were 43 expressions of interest registered, i.e. 20%, which they go on to say was a “very limited response”.

BT continues (email to Hillesley &Tresham parish council 15 Nov 04) to argue that the costs of upgrading the exchange together with a “backhaul” connection to their core network mean it is not commercially viable to enable the exchange without external funding.

It was therefore agreed that it was worth pursuing the wireless option as BT’s position is unlikely to change for several years. Even then, some users were not confident that BT could provide a satisfactory service, particularly as it is unlikely that copper will meet demands for ever-increasing bandwidth.

It was agreed that a smaller group should take wireless broadband forward:
Leighterton: Rev’d Howard Nicholls (proposed in his absence) and Bob Davies
Tresham: Bob Suter, Tom Hatherell and Richard Goodenough (chair)
Other hamlets: Pam Stockvis, James Vernon and Richard, IT coordinator, Calcot Manor (if willing).

Currently we are in contact with 32 users who have expressed interest:

If anyone knows of others who might be interested do ask them to email richard.goodenough@tresham.org.uk.

Richard Goodenough to arrange an evening meeting in the near future by email.

Draw up a specification of our overall requirements and what service we want.

Based on Internet Airworks service packages and prices, identify users keen to obtain service asap, their bandwidth requirements and their location, e.g. use Autoroute. Also identify potential users who would consider joining once the system has been implemented.