SUPERFAST BROADBAND COMING TO HAWKEDON!

Over the past couple of months, you may have noticed increased activity around the rectangular building close to the war memorial in Hawkedon, also known as the telephone exchange. You may have also seen a planning notice, road closures and people up telegraph poles in our village. The reason for all of this is because fibre broadband is coming very soon.

Some may say that the exchange has been fibre enabled for ages, which would be absolutely correct. After all, residents of both Stansfield & Thurston End have been able to take advantage of the additional speed for a while now but those in Hawkedon haven't. This has been down to one simple thing i.e. the lack of a green cabinet. These cabinets are commonplace in towns, cities and numerous villages around the country. Hawkedon is very much in the minority as each house has a direct connection to the exchange rather than to a green cabinet. This has meant the rollout of fibre has been put to the back of the queue but we are now getting close to seeing what is being dubbed 'Superfast Broadband'.

So what is fibre/superfast broadband then? In a nutshell, it can offer a quicker connection to the internet. Our government and media outlets have been banging the drum for years but we've been left behind. As rural villages don't have cable, it's really been a case of paying the likes of BT for a standard broadband connection. This is about to change.

Once all the work has been completed, which we're told should be by the end of this year, you won't simply see your internet connection speed up. You will need to contact your internet service provider and they will tell you whether you can sign up. It should be noted that this will more than likely cost you more per month so you will need to work out whether the increased speed is going to be worth the additional outlay. Here are some considerations:

1. Watching TV through BBC iPlayer, for example, will be a much smoother experience with a fibre connection. Multiple devices using a streaming service at the same time will also be possible

2. For those into online gaming, it's a simple decision to make. Fibre will make a huge difference and remove any lag. It won't automatically make you a better gamer though

3. If you connect to the internet to send emails and browse the internet, upgrading to fibre might not be necessary. The speed you currently get should be sufficient for tasks like these

If you would like to be kept up to date on the progress of fibre broadband into the village, please click here and type in your telephone number.

One last thing. We shouldn't feel too hard done by for being one of the few remaining villages to get fibre. We've been lucky to have an exchange in the village which has in turn given us reasonable speeds. For those further afield, like Rede, browsing the internet has been a struggle so I hope they also see significant improvements very soon.