Oct 11 - Worth & Aire Valley Mag

home workers who have concerns.Parents are struggling to downloademails as their children choke upthe bandwidth watching TV online,sharing photos and videos, playingcomputer games and, occasionally,doing their school and college work.For the Worth Valleyjoin us at www.fibrevalley.netOne of the many great things aboutthe Worth Valley is that it managesto be local, but still maintain nationalconnections; you can train to Londonfor nine o’clock and it’s pretty directto Leeds, Manchester and furtherafield. However, in a changing world,the connections that are becomingimportant aren’t roads, but fibres, thewires that bring broadband internetconnections to our communities, andthe Worth Valley isn’t nearly as wellconnected on that front. Recently,FibreValley, a group of residents witha personal or professional interest inhigh speed broadband was formed,and found real concerns amongresidents and business owners alike.David, for example, runs a businessin Bradford. He wants to be ableto have online meetings with theoffice, but his connection isn’t up toit. Similarly, Paul is a photographerwho wants to send high resolutionphotos to clients all over the world,but the upload speeds make thisnearly impossible. It isn’t justOver the past few months,FibreValley has been rallying supportfrom parish councils, politicians andcommunity leaders in the area andhave found a tremendous amountof support for their work. At FairIntents, volunteers conducted atwo day survey and found dozens ofresidents who weren’t satisfied withtheir broadband speed.To try and get a consistent picture,they’re now asking everyone in thevalley to take part in their speed testto help map out where the problemsare. Organiser Ken Eastwoodexplains: “All people have to do is goto our website http://fibrevalley.net/ and click on Speed Survey. Thepage has a simple button to work outyour broadband speed, which canthen be sent off to us. Eventually,we’ll have a map showing us wherethe inconsistencies are, and we’llwork with community groups and, ifpossible, telecoms companies to tryand address them.”Anyone wanting to do thespeedcheck or get involved inFibreValley can go to the website, orsearch for FibreValley on facebook.To advertise call us on 01535 64222710Say you saw it in the Worth Valley Mag!11