Our initial survey, conducted in early 2013, showed that a shocking proportion of the parish had no internet connectivity whatsoever. The majority of these properties were homes at Thameside Court at Bablockhythe, connected to aluminium/copper lines nearly 8 kilometres long and unlikely ever to receive an upgrade under normal commercial terms. These lines are often totally unable to even achieve ADSL sync, let alone attain speeds above a few hundred kilobits per second. Reliability was another problem – flooding and even heavy rain made whatever service was available disappear.

Today the first properties in Thameside were passed by the contractors building the network, providing a pure fibre to the premises connection capable of over 1Gbps. Even when it rains or floods.

Works are continuing to install the fibres and connection points around Thameside, which will be complete early next week. The Bablockhythe Caravan Park should be completed soon thereafter, pending the final agreement on cable routes with the landowner.

The cabinet power and equipment will be completed next week, SSE having installed the main power feed earlier today, allowing the network to be ‘lit’ and for service testing to start before the network is made live towards the end of July. Boxcom are continuing to provide pre-installations of the service and will start providing installations near the end of July.