Want Broadband?

Yeah, we all do.

Unfortunately, as it stands at present, BT has over two thousand exchanges that haven’t been upgraded to allow it.

So, how do you get it?

Well, unless you have cable services in your area, you’re pretty much screwed unless there is a friendly wireless provider nearby.

No, didn’t think so.

Wireless providers are as scarce as rocking horse shit J

Well, they are in my area!

So, what does that leave?

Satellite? Satellite is another broadband provider that promises much, yet, so far, hasn’t really delivered. Large installation costs, poor download ratios, we’ve all heard about them.

So, back to BT…

BT claims it will upgrade an exchange if enough people register their interest in broadband in an area.

So, how do we go about that?

Simple!  Get everyone to register his or her interest via a participating ISP or via BT’s own site. Job done!

Now lets look at the real world equivalent………

To get enough people to register, you will probably need to start a campaign in your area. People want broadband, make no mistake about that, but they won’t go out and do it all by themselves, you need to make them!

Excuses range from, “It isn’t available so I didn’t register”, to “they won’t bring that here, so why bother”.

Hullo, they said GET ENOUGH INTEREST!!!

Ok, so we’ll need a campaign. First step, register as a campaign group with BT. They claim to help campaigners.

They will tell you how many lines are on your exchange, for starters. At least, you’ll know what sort of numbers you’re looking for. The answer usually comes as “ Your exchange has xxxxlines and xxxx business lines.

Right, that’s that out of the way.

I’ve started a campaign in my area, so I’ll let you see what I’ve done so far…….

It must be working somewhat as I’ve over two hundred registrations so far J

I started the campaign.

I now needed to get folk to register!!

First step, let people know there is a campaign in the area.

Cue loads of posters stating there is a campaign. Place posters in local shop windows. Communities are fairly relaxed about this, if they know you’re trying to do something for the area. All the shops allowed me to put a poster in their window.

The poster also stated where to register their interest. In this case, I put the web address of the BT site and also gave the telephone number for registering via BT.

Sit back and watch the numbers climb……..

Actually, they didn’t, well not much. Only the real diehards will go out and register, all on their lonesome.

Ah well, back to the drawing board..

Right, how to attract the punters………

People go some places all the time.

I went to the local libraries…….

Librarians are very helpful people who have the area’s interests at heart. Don’t believe me, go talk to one, you’ll see. Not only that, but your local librarian knows most folk by first name, and when they offer them an “expression of interest” form, they usually at least consider it. You’ll notice that the registration form has now become an “expression of interest” form. BT only asks for an expression of interest.

Here is mine!

You’ll probably notice that I’m ahead of myself here, as this is the final version of the registration form.

Now we’re starting to get somewhere. People started filling in the forms, I collected them weekly and registered them.

Where else do people go? Well, in our village, we have a Business Technology Center. This is one of those places where folk learn basic computer skills and go on from there to learning more about spreadsheets, word processors etc.

They turned out to be very nice people as well. More registration forms were now required. This was starting to take up appreciable amounts of time……

Collection days were a matter of going round the various places I had persuaded to have a pile of forms available. Then it was a matter of sorting them and registering them. One of the many things I have discovered is that you need to spell everything out. People were writing their names, I couldn’t decipher them…….

Alter the form to put “print” on it. They also decided to put down their mobile numbers, or leave it blank, as it was ex directory…….

They didn’t have an email address, so didn’t bother. The form went through a variety of re-writes. I was amazed at the last part. Seems there’s more than a few people who use the Internet, but don’t use e-mail! Also the number of folk that can’t remember their own e-mail address………the mind boggles.

Now, we have a trickle of folk registering and talking about broadband.

Let’s move it on again.

I put together some prizes for a “free” draw.

Cue loads more printing……

Repeat the last couple of steps and put up the posters.

I put down a final date for the draw; this gives folk an impetus to register before a certain date.

In between this, I contacted my local councillor, my local MSP and my MP. Luckily all of them thought a campaign was a great idea.

It didn’t help the campaign much, but it did make me feel less lonely…….

My local councillor helped with other things. She (because she’s female), actually conducted the draw, and delivered the prizes. She also managed to get every last phone line at the local activity center registered for broadband!

Help like this is really top notch.

Now, I really needed a website for the campaign.

Step forward my mate Steve, our beloved web paster for the magazine you’re reading!

One thing you learn very fast doing this sort of campaign is that you need friends.

Steve pulled it all together for the website. He arranged the buying of the domain name for the website………and wrote it. All I did was try and explain what I was hoping the website would do and look like.

You can have a gander and see how well it turned out by going here http://www.bbfordoonvalley.co.uk

I also hauled in help from Ferret, our beloved editor (yeah, I’m a crawler).

Ferret did some of the graphics and gave some clip art for the site.

A pic or two courtesy of my trusty FinePix and the site was up and running.

I got the MSP and MP to put a message of support onto the Forum on the site, and the site now looked as if it was being used. Any News, however small, was also put on. This helps give the site a more personal feel for the folk in the area.

The registrations still weren’t climbing fast enough for me.

Time to hit the mean streets and see what happened when I knocked on doors.

Now knocking on doors isn’t really as bad as it sounds. You meet lots of people that you haven’t seen for years; you meet people that you’ve never seen before……

One thing you discover pretty quickly is the amount of resentment that BT is building against itself.

Abusive comments against BT are the norm when you ask if they want to register for broadband.

BT may feel they are doing well with broadband rollout, but I’d love to see their Chairman come with me for a day going round houses and seeing the reactions I get……

BT and the fact that we can’t get Channel 5 here are the main topics.

Older folk seem much more resigned to their fate, and generally are very amenable to filling in a form.

They may well remember back to when BT was actually owned by everyone.

I spend quite a lot of time explaining that we probably won’t ever get Channel 5 in this area, but do explain how to get it via Sky

And that’s where I’m up to at present. I now have helpers for various parts of the campaign, less than I would like. I’d love that everyone else did the work…but that’s just me.

The Campaign is now over 200 as I said earlier and we are now awaiting BT reviewing my exchange and I’m pushing now to get the other nearby exchange up to a level where BT has to review it as well.

The work may not be all that arduous, but it’s hard to remember that with a really nasty bitter wind and rain in your face as you tramp around the doors.

Anyway, time to go out and get some more registrations.

No doubt, I’ll keep everyone acquainted with how we get on…

By Ian Urie