It was ironic that in the week that BT (Retail) announced the winners for the BT Race to Infinity Campaign (see article below), BT Openreach announced a further 41 exchanges to receive “superfast” broadband – yet the exchange with the highest ranking on the Race to Infinity Campaign came in at…..number 553!
Here is a table of the 41 exchanges – with the place that they came in the Race to Infinity (with 2 exchanges where I could not get the data):
| Exchange Name | RDA | County | Position |
| ALFRETON | East Midlands | Derbyshire | 1712 |
| BALDOCK | East of England | Hertfordshire | 1917 |
| BATHGATE | Scotland | Lothian | 1696 |
| BILLINGE | North West | Merseyside | 2308 |
| BISHOP AUCKLAND | North East | Durham | ? |
| BLANDFORD | South West | Dorset | 1437 |
| DALKEITH | Scotland | Lothian | 957 |
| DARTMOUTH | South West | Devon | 1738 |
| DEREHAM | East of England | Norfolk | 1384 |
| DEVIZES | South West | Wiltshire | 922 |
| DORKING | South East | Surrey | 1572 |
| EDINBURGH MUSSELBURGH | Scotland | Lothian | ? |
| EPPING | East of England | Essex | 1867 |
| FAVERSHAM | South East | Kent | 1499 |
| FILEY | Yorkshire and The Humber | North Yorkshire | 1506 |
| FRINTON- ON-SEA | East of England | Essex | 916 |
| GREAT DUNMOW | East of England | Essex | 775 |
| HALSTEAD | East of England | Essex | 1399 |
| HUNGERFORD | South East | Berkshire | 572 |
| KIDLINGTON | South East | Oxfordshire | 1216 |
| KNUTSFORD | North West | Cheshire | 1463 |
| MIRFIELD | Yorkshire and The Humber | West Yorkshire | 1708 |
| MONTROSE | Scotland | Tayside | 1597 |
| MORPETH | North East | Northumberland | 1662 |
| NANTWICH | North West | Cheshire | 802 |
| NEWMARKET | East of England | Suffolk | 2044 |
| OSWESTRY | West Midlands | Shropshire | 934 |
| PENRITH | North West | Cumbria | 1564 |
| PONTYCYMMER | Wales | Mid Glamorgan | 1987 |
| RAINFORD | North West | Merseyside | 2052 |
| RIPLEY | East Midlands | Derbyshire | 1858 |
| ROYSTON, S. YORKSHIRE | Yorkshire and The Humber | South Yorkshire | 1573 |
| SANDWICH | South East | Kent | 1132 |
| SHEERNESS | South East | Kent | 1866 |
| SHERINGHAM | East of England | Norfolk | 1352 |
| STOCKSBRIDGE | Yorkshire and The Humber | South Yorkshire | 1857 |
| STOURPORT | West Midlands | Hereford & Worcester | 1233 |
| WALLINGFORD | South East | Oxfordshire | 345 |
| WENDOVER | South East | Buckinghamshire | 1161 |
| WESTBURY | South West | Wiltshire | 553 |
| WIMBORNE | South West | Dorset | 1097 |
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I guess we will never know, but my guess is these people already have a working adsl connection and are satisfied to a great degree so wouldn’t bother getting involved. They will also be real easy and cheap to connect to cabinets. I would have had far more respect for the incumbent telco had it spent the last decade doing this work and it may now be ready to do proper fibre to the home. I feel very sorry for the towns in the list above, as Liv Garfield from BT has said they won’t be revisited for upgrades for many years. Poor things, stuck on copper phone lines, when rural villages are on real gigabit fibre with no public funding either, faster than anything BT is delivering in this country. Infinity my arse.
http://ashbybookplus.blogspot.com/
Thanks, Chris. And thanks for the link – very interesting. That’s exactly what we want in Goudhurst!
Maybe the answer is simpler, the race to infinity winners seem to be smaller more homogeneous communities, whereas the comparison Market towns are more diverse, so the chance of the percentage votes being similar is quite unlikely
@LorneM
Well funnily enough NextGenUs is looking for another dozen Ashby style FttH villages to build in 2011.
If the good folks of Goudhurst are ready to step up then let’s JFDI
G
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