Broadband in East Garston: your chance to get something better…

Over the last six months I’ve had multiple losses of broadband every day. This has been very disruptive as I work from home. Others we’ve spoken to have reported similar issues, sometimes more severe. You may have had similar experiences.

We’ve had several visits by BT OpenReach. Only since my case had reached a “trouble threshold” did something positive get done (senior OpenReach engineers being deployed). None the less, the village’s current copper-wire connections mean that any resolution might be temporary.

Although an upgrade from the current copper wire to the more reliable and faster fibre in East Garston is scheduled for some time in 2026, this is not guaranteed and still involves a long wait.

If 25 or more properties in the village experience poor broadband service (defined as more than three outages in any 24 hours), we can lobby OpenReach on everyone’s behalf to upgrade to fibre to the house sooner than this. It will also help draw the attention of OpenReach (which provides this “last-mile” service, regardless of which provider you use) to any problems.

To expedite this, we’ve created a survey which you can can participate in by clicking here. The results of this will be shared with BT/Openreach on order to make this case and not for any other reason.

Even if you’ve had no issues recently we’d urge you to complete the survey if you had any in the last nine months or so – problems that go away by themselves can come back by themselves.

That’s not all – please also report any broadband drop-outs to your provider, and to BT on 0800 800 150 or by text to 61988.

This survey has been created by Paul Horrix in Front Street. You can contact him on paul@horrix.co.uk if you have any questions before completing it.