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Welcome to the first Broadband Project email newsletter

Ask yourself, could you live without a telephone? In a couple of short years broadband will be like this. So many services will be delivered by high speed data links that without them communities will suffer. Education, banking, entertainment, working from home, e-government and shopping are taking over on the Internet and broadband makes using these services so much easier. Even home buyers in urban areas now add broadband to their list of desirable specifications for estate agents. It's time that rural areas were no longer left out.

We (at MBP) would like to thank you for voicing your support in the campaign to get the Machynlleth exchange ADSL / broadband enabled.

Machynlleth trigger level

Mach now has a trigger level! BT yesterday (17.11.03) announced the trigger level for 2,300 exchanges as part of their goal to enable all of the UK by 2005. There is a link to their press release on the MBP website. Go to the Information page and click on National Articles.

The Machynlleth trigger level has been set at 400. This may seem excessive considering Bow Street only needed 200. There are approximately 1800 lines coming out of the Machynlleth exchange. That means we need about 22% of those lines to register their interest with BT before they will upgrade the exchange.

Having scoured the BT Campaign notice board I get the impression that trigger levels represent about 25% of the lines in the exchange. If you disagree with the figure we suggest that you email the BT Wholesale Deployment Team that set the levels at btw.broadband.deployment@bt.com. I know some of us have already voiced an opinion.

As of this morning (Tue 18th Nov) we have 89 registrations with BT. This is good news and growing all the time. Last week was a particularly good week. You could sense a real broadband buzz in the atmosphere. Lets keep up the pressure. Word of mouth is still the best from of promotion. So, if you know of anyone who lives in Machynlleth and is fed up with their dial-up connection, get them to register. Go on, just ask. The number of times I've mentioned it to my neighbours ...

Our campaign has also been mentioned on the BBC website. Check out this link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/3258465.stm) for the article. The MBP website (www.machbroadband.org.uk) has also been updated with lots of additional links to other broadband related BBC articles. Go to the Information page and click on National Articles for more information.

Corris and Dinas Mawddwy trigger levels

According to campaigner Mike Tedd: "The thresholds are roughly proportional to population. So some of the smaller exchanges in the Dyfi Valley may have attainable thresholds. Dinas Mawddwy and Corris each require only 100 people to say they want broadband and BT must install it." John Behnan of the Mach Broadband Campaign says Corris "already has 26 registrations (as of 18.11.03). There is every likelihood that Corris could get broadband before us."

If you haven't already noticed there is a new Campaign page on the MBP website. There you can find a chart with our current (about 24 hours old) registration level. Click the chart and you can see even more detailed information about how and when registrations are taking place.

Campaign Information - We Need Your Help:

We are currently putting together a report for the local council. This report will be submitted before the end of this week and will be brought up at the next Machynlleth Council meeting on the 24th November. If you are a business in the area and feel that Broadband would help you improve your business, please send us a quote with your reasons why. We will compile them and include them in the report. So, get writing!!

Make Sure You've Registered Your Interest with BT

Remember, registering with us is not the same as registering an interest with BT. If you haven't yet done so, go to http://www.btopenworld.com/votebroadband to register.

You won't be under any obligation with BT. If they decide to upgrade the exchange you'll be free to use another supplier. It is just a measure for them to see if there is enough broadband interest from our exchange to make it economically viable. Get registering!

Next Meeting:

The date for our next meeting has been set. It will take place on Monday 24th November at 6:00 pm in The White Lion pub public meeting room. Everyone is more than welcome to come along. The more people that get involved the easier it will be for our voice to be heard and the faster we can join the rest of the world in the broadband revolution.

Next newsletter in a fortnight