Fastershire is a partnership between Herefordshire Council and Gloucestershire County Council to bring faster broadband to the two counties, with funding from central government’s Broadband Delivery UK matched by the local authorities. The ultimate aim is that by the end of 2019/20 there will be access to fast broadband for all who need it.
However, Fastershire is not only about technology, the project also includes social and digital inclusion activities, and an extensive business support programme, FasterBusiness. The programme is designed to help small and medium size businesses get the most from fibre broadband and be more competitive. In fact, it is expected that Fastershire will help to boost the local economy by £420m over the next ten years.
Fastershire will revolutionise the way that people of all ages across Herefordshire and Gloucestershire work, learn and play, and will benefit generations to come.
The Rollout
Phase 2 of the Fastershire rollout of faster broadband across Herefordshire and Gloucestershire will be based around four areas (area 1, 2, 3(A-E) & 4) and will comprise of premises that were not covered by Phase 1 or commercial rollout.
Each went through its own consultation and procurement process to secure a supplier to carry out the deployment.
All information, including forecast dates, is indicative only. Forecast dates may move forwards as well as backwards.
Area 1: The Cotswolds
Area 2: The Forest of Dean
Area 3A: Cheltenham and Gloucester
Area 3B: Hereford
Area 3C: South Herefordshire and Gloucestershire (west of the Severn)
Area 3D: North Gloucestershire
Area 3E: South Gloucestershire
Area 4: North Herefordshire
Area 1: Cotswolds
Gigaclear was awarded the contract to deliver phase 2 in the Cotswolds in summer 2015. The first digging for our delivery of ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises to parts of the Cotswolds began in October 2015 and is now complete.
The rollout covered areas of Andoversford, Bibury, Bourton On The Water, Cirencester, Coberley, Coln St.Aldwyn, Cricklade, Fairford, Fossebridge, Guiting Power, Kemble, Kempsford, Lechlade, Miserden, North Cerney, Northleach, Poulton, South Cerney, Southrop, Stow-On-The-Wold, Windrush and Withington not upgraded to faster broadband in Phase 1.
Area 2: Forest of Dean
We have awarded a contract to Gigaclear to deliver the phase 2 rollout in parts of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire and the Golden Valley in Herefordshire not upgraded to faster broadband in Phase 1.
Area 3(A-E) & 4: The rest of the Gloucestershire and Herefordshire
Area 3A-B (Cheltenham and Gloucester) and area 3B (Hereford)
We have awarded a contract to BT Group to deliver the phase two rollout
in these areas not upgraded to faster broadband.
Area 3(C-E) & 4: The rest of the Gloucestershire and Herefordshire
We have awarded a contract to Gigaclear to deliver the phase two rollout in these areas not upgraded to faster broadband in Phase 1.
Area 3C (South Herefordshire)
Area 3D (North Gloucestershire)
Area 3E (South Gloucestershire)
Area 4 (North Herefordshire)
To find out if your property is included in this next phase of rollout please use our address checker at the top of the page.
Fastershire Strategy
Phase 1 of the Fastershire strategy has provided
approximately 90% of the homes and businesses across Herefordshire and Gloucestershire with access to superfast broadband and speeds of 30Mbps or above.
Over the next two years, phase 2 of the project’s strategy will increase total superfast coverage to around 98%, as phase 2 seeks to provide faster broadband to premises that were not covered by Phase 1 or commercial rollout.
Phase 2
Stage 3 – Hereford, Gloucestershire and Cheltenham
Stage 3 of the Fastershire rollout sees BT continuing to
deliver in Hereford, Gloucestershire and Cheltenham and build on their
commercial deployment.
Stage 3 - Rural Herefordshire and Gloucestershire
Gigaclear has been awarded the Fastershire delivery contract
for rural areas of the county.
Gigaclear is a wholesale network provider and internet
service provider (ISP) who specialise in connecting rural communities by
installing its pure fibre network straight into the property.
Pure fibre, also known as Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) offers a more future-proof solution and
broadband speeds of up to 1000Mbps. This technology is not affected by how far
your home is from the network cabinet and the connection is symmetric so you
get the same upload and download speeds.
Stage 4
For the remaining, hardest to
reach properties, Fastershire is using a mix of solutions, including a bespoke
grants and contract extensions.
Business Grant
Fastershire, in partnership with Connecting Shropshire and
Superfast Telford and part funded by the European Regional Development Fund,
have designed the Marches and Gloucestershire Broadband Grant.
The grant provides up to 100% of the capital installation
cost for an eligible SME that not be included in Fastershire’s main rollout and
that can demonstrate the economic return.
Viable Clusters
Fastershire has been awarded funding from the European
Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and has identified a number of
significant property clusters that could benefit from this funding.
Contract Extensions
For the remaining properties, Fastershire will be exploring
possible contract extensions with BT and Gigaclear to provide access to faster
broadband.
To read more about the plans please download the full strategy, please click here.
In this free workshop at Coleford Library you will learn how to set-up an email account, spot scam emails, send and receive emails and attach documents.
Location: Coleford Library, The Main Place, Railway Drive, Coleford, GL16 8RH
This session will help teach you the basics of how to use a tablet. As part of national Get Online Week 2019, Fastershire is providing a free introduction to training sessions to help more people get online.
More and more utilities and banking services are now available online, which can help save you both time and money. This includes many Government and Local Authority services.
Location: Hesters Way Neighbourhood Project, Hesters Way Community Resource Centre, Cassin Drive, Cheltenham, GL51 7SU
An introduction to using social media for farming and rural businesses based in Gloucestershire. This session offers you an introduction to using social media to promote your business and is ideal if you have little or no experience of Facebook, Twitter or blogging.
In this FREE training session, Faster Business advisors, Mandy Sims and Catherine Banks, will help you understand the benefit of email marketing and how to incorporate it into your marketing strategy.
Location: Civic Suite (3rd floor), North Warehouse,The Docks, Gloucester, GL1 2EP
Have your say! Survey of broadband availability across Herefordshire and Gloucestershire
2nd November, 2016
Residents and businesses in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire are being invited to contribute to a major survey of broadband availability across the two counties.
The survey is being undertaken by independent researchers at the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) as part of the 'Evaluation of the impact of superfast fibre broadband in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire' due to be published in 2017.
The survey will be live until the end of November and the responses will directly feed into to the Fastershire project. The results will also help demonstrate the level of demand in communities that are yet to benefit from the Fastershire rollout and help raise their profile for better broadband with potential suppliers.
The survey takes around 5 minutes to complete, with questions relating to how residents and businesses currently use broadband and internet services and where better broadband services are required.
Cllr Mark Hawthorne, leader of Gloucestershire County Council, and Cllr Harlow, Herefordshire Council cabinet member for economy and corporate services, responsible for the Fastershire project said, “Whether or not you live or work in one of the over 100,000 premises in the two counties that have benefited from Fastershire so far we hope as many people as possible complete the survey. The survey will allow us to accurately assess the impact the Fastershire project has made to those who already have access to superfast broadband, but more importantly the survey will give those communities who are yet to benefit an opportunity to have their say.”
Fastershire is in the process of tendering a second phase of rollout valued at £20m that will see faster broadband extend further across the both counties. The results of the survey will be presented to prospective suppliers and could help influence which areas they target in their bids.
Herefordshire Council and Gloucestershire County Council have recently
updated the Fastershire Broadband Strategy outlining how the project aims to
achieve the vision that… “by the end of 2019/20 all residents and businesses in
Herefordshire and Gloucestershire will be able to order the broadband service
they need and a high percentage will be using faster broadband to do more
online, boost business growth and achieve their potential”
The strategy includes a number of stages (3 and 4) which will be
delivered in part through a series of procurement exercises.
Each stage will be preceded by an Open Market Review (OMR) and state aid
Public Consultation to establish the location of existing and planned (next 3
years) commercial coverage of broadband services across the potential
intervention areas by all existing and any prospective, superfast broadband
infrastructure providers.
Stage 3
The consultation processes for all stage 3 procurements have been
concluded.
Stage 4
The Viable Clusters element of Stage 4 of the
Fastershire Broadband Strategy will be delivered in partnership with Shropshire
and Telford & Wrekin using EAFRD funding.
The Open Market Review for the Clusters closed on
November 3rd 2017.
Following a series of representations, the intended
intervention area was refined from 15,269 to 13,664 premises with one Cluster
(S11 Church Stretton) being completely removed from the project.
The Public Consultation was published on December
1st 2017 and closed at noon on January 3rd 2017.
Following further
representations two clusters (Ludlow and Burwarton) were removed in their
entirety leaving the Final Eligible Intervention Area at 13,156 premises,
mapped as follows.
An Open OJEU procurement process will follow in
early 2018 to identify a supplier or suppliers to deliver the project as a
whole or in part.
Industry Day
The partners hosted an Industry Day for potential
bidders to explain the project, introduce the selected clusters and discuss the
procurement process on Friday 10 November 2017.
Primary
School Filmmaking Competition 2018
We're inviting Primary Schools across Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to take part in our filmmaking challenge to create a short film about internet.
Schools are required to produce a 30-60 second film to showcase positive use of the
internet and can be an advert, comedy, documentary, ‘how to guide’ or news
report.
The competition is designed to help demonstrates the benefits of the
internet but also to provide an opportunities for children to use the internet
as a learning tool, to search and accesses online resources to help them plan
and produce their film.
The films will be uploaded to the Fastershire website and the film with the most
views wins £200 for their school.
The 2017 Winner - Walford Primary School, Herefordshire
To
help you get started we've compiled some useful resources and 'how to' videos.
Into
Film
Into Film is an Education
charity that offers support to teachers and educators to achieve a wide
range of effective learning outcomes in their use of film.
Their
website offers free resources about all elements of film making, by age and
topic.
Young
Film Academy helps over 7,500 young people each year complete their first films
across the UK and is an official London delivery partner for the BFI Film
Academy.
As young people now grow up using laptops, tablets and smartphones as if they were second nature, we would like to help them share their skills by teaching a family member how to use the internet.
Fastershire can run competitions with schools across Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to encourage students to teach a member of their family the basics of using the internet. At the end of the teaching, the student and the person being taught will be asked to write about the experience and what they've got out of it, and the student will submit this as an entry to the competition.
You can download PDFs of our training guides to use in training sessions or for your own learning...
The Government's Better Broadband Scheme aims to help provide access to a basic broadband service that will offer download speeds of at least 10 Mbps.
The Better Broadband Scheme, developed by the UK government, provides a voucher worth up to £350 for basic broadband installation to homes and businesses that will not benefit from superfast broadband.
The eligibility criteria for the scheme is as follows;
Your current broadband download
capacity is below 2Mbps
There are no alternative
affordable broadband services available to you which would provide a
download speed of at least 2Mbps
There are no plans to provide
superfast broadband to your location (To see if your property is included
in Fastershire’s rollout, please use the website address above)
For more information or to apply, please visit the Government's Better Broadband Scheme website.
Faster broadband is being rolled out across Herefordshire and Gloucestershire between now but it is not possible to flick a switch to make every area go live on the same day and some areas will go live before this. Register your interest today and we will keep you in the loop about developments in your fibre broadband status.
Your set-up
Internet basics
Everyday help
Keeping in touch
Your family
Services and support
Media and entertainment
Money and shopping
96,516 Faster homes & 
99
exchange areas 
7,000 km of 
621
cabinets 
