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Latest News & EventsKeep up to date with the latest news and events at ORB. Here you’ll find details of our network rollout plans, including breaking news on which communities we’ll be connecting to wireless broadband and when. We also have announcements on the new products and services that we’re introducing plus details of local events being held in your area. Sign up to our News Update to hear about the latest developments at ORB as and when they happen. Events OBP WI-FI HOTSPOT CAMPAIGNThe Oxfordshire Broadband Partnership is introducing a Wi-Fi hotspots programme, which aims to ensure that everybody in Oxfordshire is no more then 10 minutes journey from a hotspot. There are a limited number of £200 grants available for businesses/ organisations that would like to provide a public Wi-Fi hotspot service. For an application form click: http://www.oxbroadband.co.uk/hotspots OXFORDSHIRE BROADBAND PARTNERSHIPThe Oxfordshire Broadband Partnership has been formed to promote the effective use of high speed internet access to Oxfordshire businesses. It draws upon the strength of a number of the region's key players from both the private and public sector. Each member brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise which fused together enhances the offerings provided to SMEs of Oxfordshire. Find out more about the OBP at www.oxbroadband.co.uk NOTIFICATION OF THE FIRST ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2005 Notice of the First Annual General Meeting of Oxfordshire Rural Broadband Limited A more formal agenda will be emailed to members and posted on the forum (www.oxonrb.net/forum) closer to the time.
APRIL 15th 2004- Second CAN ColloquiumORB is hosting the second CAN Colloquium - a networking event specifically for those running community broadband networks. A great opportunity to meet the people actually doing it for their community across the country. The all day event, to be held on 15th April in Churchill, Oxfordshire, is open to anyone running a community network, or thinking about it, and costs just £10 including lunch. Click here to book your place DECEMBER 15th 2004- Broadband - What's the Fuss eventORB held a successful evening for interested parties to visit and find out more about the service, with demonstrations, a broadband gaming competition and video streaming to showcase the value-added services that ORB's high speed network can offer members. JUNE 30th 2004 - ORB's Broadband Service reaches Kingham 9 months ahead of BT!ORB's wireless broadband service is now live in Kingham. On the day that BT announced that Kingham exchange will not have ADSL legacy broadband until May 2005, ORB installed its high speed wireless broadband node in Kingham. ORB's service is now available across the Wychwood Forest area including Shipton, Milton and Ascott-under-Wychwood, Churchill, Lyneham and Merriscourt. JUNE 30th 2004- BT announces ADSL for Shipton and Kingham Exchanges - but it's a long waitAs part of its planned rollout programme of broadband across the UK, BT announced today that broadband will be available from the Shipton exchange in April 2005 and at the Kingham exchange in May 2005. By contrast ORB's high-speed wireless broadband service is available now across the Shipton exchange area and will also be available in Kingham. So why wait over 9 months for BT's legacy broadband offer when ORB's 21st century broadband service is available NOW? To order call 0845 456 4781 JUNE 20th 2004 - New Customer Service Numbers announcedORB has just introduced two new customer service numbers:-
MAY 25th 2004 - Shipton and Lyneham now Live!In addition to Milton, ORB’s wireless network is now delivering service to Shipton and Lyneham with the successful implementation of the North Shipton Node at the weekend. This also saw the successful implementation of our first “long link” using the 802.11h 5.8GHz Band C equipment. After some initial teething problems, we are now getting a full and reliable 54mb/sec between Shipton and Milton. MAY 24th 2004 - Leased Line in Milton now operationalOur leased line at the Milton Coop has now been installed and is
fully operational. After dragging its heels on delivering the leased
line, BT missed the deadline date of 17th May. ORB made vociferous
high level representations to BT with the result that Milton was
swamped by BT engineers and contractors on Friday 21st. As a consequence
of them pulling the stops out we were able to commission the leased
line over the weekend and customers started migrating over to it
on the 24th. We are now getting the performance we were hoping for
and it is fast! MAY 19th 2004 - Demonstration PC operational in Milton CoopA demonstration PC for ORB's broadband service has been installed in the Milton Coop. If you do want to try before you buy then drop in and take a look. MAY 6th 2004 - ORB Broadband Roadshow in Stanford-in-the-ValeThe next ORB Broadband Roadshow is scheduled for Thursday 6th May at 8:00pm in the Small Village Hall, Hunters Field, Stanford. If you live in the area, come and find out what broadband is, why it’s important to us, and how you can get it. APRIL 29th 2004 - First ORB Broadband Roadshow held in Long HanboroughThe first of ORB’s Broadband Roadshows was held in Long Hanborough on the evening of the 29th. The Freeland exchange, which covers the Hanboroughs, is being broadband enabled by BT on 5th May and the local campaign group invited ORB to explain to community members the benefits of broadband and how people could get it. Adrian Wooster, Technical Director of ORB described the various types of broadband service available over the BT network and what people should look for in upgrading from dial-up to broadband accounts. Considerable interested was shown by the audience in the new ADSL services being launched by ORB for broadband-enabled exchange areas. Further ORB Broadband Roadshows are scheduled for Stanford-in-the-Vale, Long Wittenham, Uffington, Childrey, Filkins and other communities due to have ADSL broadband installed in their local exchanges. APRIL 27th 2004 - BT scraps Trigger Level Scheme!BT announced today that it is to scrap its trigger level scheme and proceed with a nationwide rollout of ADSL to all exchanges which have not yet reached their targets. Completion is expected by Summer 2005. ORB welcomed this announcement as BT has at last realised what ORB has been saying for over a year now regarding the demand for broadband in rural parts of Oxfordshire. However Jeremy Renwick, Commercial Director of ORB has pointed out that many rural premises will still only be able to receive the basic 512kbps service because of their distance from the exchange and that this will limit their ability to exploit broadband to its full. In this context, the UK still compares poorly to countries such as France, Germany, South Korea and Japan, where much higher speeds are available. With the full support of its backers, ORB is therefore pressing ahead with its wireless network rollout as planned. ORB’s community area networks allow speeds of up to 5Mbps within the network itself and can be easily upgraded for faster speeds still. This will allow a range of innovative community applications based on video and other forms of multimedia which require the higher bandwidth that ORB is able to deliver. APRIL 24th 2004 - Wychwoods Forest Network Officially LaunchedORB's Wychwoods Forest network was officially launched on Saturday April 24th by David Cameron, MP for Witney. David praised the hard work put in by ORB to bring an essential service to the Wychwoods which would be of great benefit to households and businesses alike. He also stressed his support for the Community Broadband concept commenting that the plans ORB has for services on its network will put people the Wychwoods ahead of their counterparts in urban areas. APRIL 19th 2004 - ORB Customers Live in Milton!ORB has our first customers live! We have now completed installation of 7 customers in Milton-under-Wychwood and the feedback so far on the service is very positive. In other news we are delighted to be able to welcome the community at Upper Rissington to the ORB family. We have reached agreement with the landlord, Country and Metropolitan and the local activists on how to get broadband to them. This also allows us to make the overall network more resilient through the use of the tower on the old fire station. APRIL 6th 2004 - Wychwoods Forest & Kingham Latest UpdateWe are now working on installing our first customers in Milton-under-Wychwood. Our backbone network is currently under construction from Milton to Shipton, Ascott, Churchill and Kingham so, once this is complete, we will be connecting up customers in these communities too. Our link to the Internet is at present provided by satellite backhaul at the Milton Co-Op store. A high capacity leased line has been ordered and is scheduled for installation by May 17th. This will allow us to greatly increase the number of customers to whom we provide a service. APRIL 5th 2004 - Sutton CourtenayORB is pleased to announce that it will be bringing broadband internet access to the communities of Sutton Courtenay and Appleford. This has been enabled by a £3900 grant from the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and Downland Broadband Limited (the Blewbury Broadband Campaign group). ORB already has access to Internet backhaul in the area. The grant will pay for the wireless equipment to extend this to Sutton Courtenay and distribute it to consumers in both villages. To register for the wireless service please click here APRIL 5th 2004 - ADSLORB will shortly be announcing an ADSL service for communities with broadband-enabled exchanges. The service, which is being provided in partnership with The Phone Coop, will offer downstream speeds of 512kbps and 1Mbps for homes, businesses and community organisations. Full details, including pricing will be announced soon! To register your interest, please click here MARCH 3rd 2004 - ORB working with community campaignsORB is delighted to be able to announce that we are working with campaigns in Upper Rissington, Church Westcote, Great Tew, Hook Norton, Cholsey, Tackley, Bledington, Islip, Noke and Woodeaton to extend our wireless broadband network to these ADSL-deprived areas. If you are in these communities, please register with us and keep in contact with your local campaigner for detailed news of the process to obtain a service in your area. If you are in a village not listed above we would encourage you to register as there are discussions underway with other communities. MARCH 1st 2004 - Latest Update on the Wychwoods/Kingham networkIt has been a couple of weeks since my last ORB update and things have moved on very quickly, even though you may not have seen much evidence of this. Inevitably we have been doing the boring but crucial background work that lays the foundation for a successful broadband service. I thought it was worth just keeping you up to date. I have also penned some answers to questions that we have been asked. Tendering We have run a formal tender process for the equipment we will use and selected our key suppliers. We have placed placed orders with many of these suppliers already with more in the coming days. Adrian already has a few new toys to play with and is very happy! Radio Trials Adrian has started testing the equipment, both at the office and in the field. You may have seen him in Shipton and Milton with a large aluminium pole freezing to death as the snow whirls around (OK a bit of an exaggeration). These have gone very well and we are now certain of the locations for the core backbone network. This will be installed as soon as the equipment arrives, probably week commencing 8th March. Registrations and Orders We now have over 100 detailed registrations for ORB’s service. Thanks very much! We will be processing these into order forms in the next week or so and will be sending them out to you to sign. What you will need to do is to check that the details are correct and send them back, by post, with a cheque for the relevant installation fee. When we receive it we will then arrange for the installer (if you have selected ORB installation) to come and put the equipment into your home or business. We’ll also be sending out a Standing Order Mandate at the
same time for you to complete and return to us for onward transmission
to your bank (we will add our references to avoid money being lost
in the banking system), this will cover the ongoing monthly rental.
In time we’ll be moving across to direct debit, but the banking
system does not move fast enough for us to be able to do this on
day 1. PRESS RELEASESORB's position on BT scrapping trigger levels - 29th April 2004 ORB launches Community Broadband Network in the Wychwoods - 24th April 2004 ORB brings broadband to West Oxon - 3rd February 2004 Co-op helps broadband in rural communities - 26th January 2004
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