The meeting took place in the Plough in Appleton

Attending

Julian Morris, Lee Rennie, Phil Neale, Keith Stammers, Joyce Martin, Ian Bowen-Morris, Howard Thomas, Richard Readshaw.

David Hine joined the meeting later.

Bernard Martin and Ben Salmon sent their apologies.

Committee positions
Howard had convened the meeting but considered that his position as Chair of the Parish Council prevented him from taking a specific role in the Action Group. In David Hine's absence Julian agreed to chair the meeting for the evening. Once David arrived we settled on Julian and David alternating as Chairs. Richard agreed to take minutes of the meeting.

Report from the public meeting on 13 February 2010
As most of us had been at this meeting Howard needed only to give a brief report, pointing out that it had been well attended and that Chris Marson from Northlew in Devon and Gaurav Chaudry of Horsebridge Network Systems Ltd had given interesting speeches on their experience of installing a wireless network covering Northlew.

Chris's description of the network's business model were particularly useful, and we noted his opinion that government funding for similar schemes would not extend beyond the next general election.

Howard had circulated Graham Rose's minutes and we accepted that these were a fair record of the meeting.

BT Correspondence
Following the public meeting emails were exchanged between Chris Marson, David Hine, Ian Livingstone (BT's CEO) and Dan Moss, Senior Complaints Manager, BT Openreach. Dan Moss promised to conduct an examination of the network's capability. He also mentioned exploring the suitability of a trial product called BET. This we believe can deliver speeds up to 2Mbps 12km from the exchange. This would cover the whole village including Appleton Common which is 9km distant.

Julian said he would continue discussions with BT. He asked that we should all test our connections using www.speedtester.bt.com and send him the results along with our ISP details. This would provide some facts to present to BT. The consensus was that we welcomed any improvement BT could make but this would not prevent us from exploring alternatives. A brief survey of those attending the meeting showed that speeds varied from 1.2 Mbps to 200 kbps, with some startling variations between next-door neighbours.

Ian Bowen-Morris offered to track down other contacts within BT.

Alternative Approaches
Various attenders understood that there was an optical fibre link to Appleton School so one possibility would be to open this up to the wider community without affecting the school's usage. Joyce Martin said she would speak to people in the County Council and LEA as well as the school to see if this were possible.

However, this would still need some mechanism to deliver broadband access and for this the most obvious alternative would be a wireless network similar to that installed at Northlew by Horsebridge. The main wireless router would be positioned in Appleton Church with boosters placed around the village. Subscriptions could be managed through Appleton Community Shop. Access would cost around £18 per month with an initial sign-up fee.

Installing this type of network had cost Northlew around £47,000 so we would have to establish what level of commitment to it there is in the village to make it viable. It was pointed out that Northlew didn't have broadband at all, and BT had made clear that there were no plans to provide it. The wireless network was their only alternative, whereas some people in Appleton are quite happy with what they've got. Government grants could cover up to 75% of the cost but these might not be available after the election.

David Hine pointed out that Horsebridge have installed networks elsewhere in circumstances closer to those found in Appleton. He would get in touch with Horsebridge and investigate other installations. He also offered to get more details on what support Horsebridge provided.

Lee did point out that there were some health concerns about radiation from broadband which we might have to answer. Keith said that no scientific investigation had ever found any cause for concern.

Satellite broadband was mentioned, but Lee Rennie had investigate this and found it would cost £90 per month and that there would be a 20 GB transfer limit per month.

Next Steps
The group would call itself the Broadband Action Group, and we would meet again on 28 April 2010.

Everyone would send Julian results from speedtester.com