Community Broadband

[Jan]

Hi,
Does anyone have a community broadband set-up on their development? Our president has tried to get the residents on our community interested but without success so far. It seems that he needs to get a fair majority of the properties to be interested in having it, for it to be worth it.

It's must be better and more economically than everyone paying separately but would be interested to hear if anyone has it and how it has worked out?



Jan.

[scubydoo]

Hi it would defiantly be more economical but our community had one in from day one so all the cabling was built in so this may be a problem, people then complained that they were not using the community TV so why should they have to pay for it! it was then decided tat it would be taken out of the community fund and only the people using would pay which has left a real mess and has to be managed separately which is a real pain, they should have been told it was part of the community if it was used or not and would have cost everyone les than 5 euros a year, I think you may have an up hill struggle but I do know someone you can talk to if you want to discuss logistics if you want his contact details let me know

Cheers

[Jan]

Hello scubydoo,

Yes I agree if you had the community TV and Broadband set up from day one then it should be a compulsory part of the community fees and, as you say, it would be much cheaper for everyone. Most communities have a swimming pool but some residents complained in the early days of our development that they didn't use the pool so why should they pay for it in their fees. However that was not upheld at the meeting. I think a lot of problems arise when residents don't attend community meetings and then complain about decisions that were made.

I suppose it's a bit late to get people to accept a community run media set-up being installed when the community is a few years old but it is a good idea in theory, as long as it is well maintained. It would certainly be helpful for holiday-home owners but I suppose even some of them may complain that they don't use it enough to warrant paying regularly for it. I think everything with communities is a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation.


Jan.

[W12]

Hola,

as president of my community I have been through this very same scenario.
When I installed our community network (4-5 years ago) I first connected the permanent residents.
The non-residents soon seen the benefit & requested to be connected.
We got to a situation where our monthly fees were down to 0.67c per user per month.
At the following AGM the community voted to absorb the cost into the annual community fees.
We get the highest speeds available in the area at a fraction of the cost.
The faster, more stable connection allows non-residents with alarm systems & residents with phones all to benefit at minimal cost

With regard to the community fees, I can't swim but the pool was on the plans when I bought therefore I pay my percentage towards it.
As far as I'm aware if you buy into a community you take ownership of a percentage of all communal elements & are libel for any corresponding fees.

[Jan]

Hola,

as president of my community I have been through this very same scenario.
When I installed our community network (4-5 years ago) I first connected the permanent residents.
The non-residents soon seen the benefit & requested to be connected.
We got to a situation where our monthly fees were down to 0.67c per user per month.
At the following AGM the community voted to absorb the cost into the annual community fees.
We get the highest speeds available in the area at a fraction of the cost.
The faster, more stable connection allows non-residents with alarm systems & residents with phones all to benefit at minimal cost

With regard to the community fees, I can't swim but the pool was on the plans when I bought therefore I pay my percentage towards it.
As far as I'm aware if you buy into a community you take ownership of a percentage of all communal elements & are libel for any corresponding fees.

Hi,
I wish our community had this set-up. We are holiday-homers but I am sure that even if we were living there full time I would think it would be the best and more economical way to get Broadband & TV, in fact we would have been the ones paying more for less usage. We are on a very large community and it would no doubt be even cheaper than most communities and definitely cheaper than paying separately.

Our community meetings are poorly attended and when our Administrator asked people to send him their views on whether they would like a community system or not, he hardly had any feedback. It would have been quite acceptable if he had received loads of people saying they didn't want it, but to have just a few replying was such a shame.

[W12]

Hi Jan,

same here, the same few households regularly attend the meetings & get information available first hand.
Those that don't attend or read the minutes get their updates around the pool the following summer.
Then if it's something they require your expected to drop everything & get it installed before they go home!

That's the reason I set up a separate community for the Internet.
I got the residents up & running & the holiday makers seen the benefit & followed suit.
By making individual households end users of the community owned network, they paid their own installation fees.
This way the community owns the network, but off-sets the installation costs/ fees to the users & not the community as a whole.
Those who want Internet get the cost savings, those that don't get a free community asset. Everyone's a winner

I found the best way to achieve anything within the community, is to word your correspondence in such a way that "no response" is an agreement to the proposal.
otherwise we would get nothing done I'm afraid.

[Jan]

Hi Jan,

same here, the same few households regularly attend the meetings & get information available first hand.
Those that don't attend or read the minutes get their updates around the pool the following summer.
Then if it's something they require your expected to drop everything & get it installed before they go home!

That's the reason I set up a separate community for the Internet.
I got the residents up & running & the holiday makers seen the benefit & followed suit.
By making individual households end users of the community owned network, they paid their own installation fees.
This way the community owns the network, but off-sets the installation costs/ fees to the users & not the community as a whole.
Those who want Internet get the cost savings, those that don't get a free community asset. Everyone's a winner

I found the best way to achieve anything within the community, is to word your correspondence in such a way that "no response" is an agreement to the proposal.
otherwise we would get nothing done I'm afraid.