Little London and Smannell Trial
Despite being two of the smallest villages in Hampshire, villagers in Little London and Smannell now have access to some of the best broadband services in the country.
Bringing faster broadband to 120 households and businesses in a rural ‘not spot’ was largely uncharted territory in 2008, when the project began. The villagers of Little London and Smannell on the outskirts of Andover were fed up with their very slow internet speeds. None of the commercial companies had plans to upgrade the network and the likelihood was the villages would be left behind. Meanwhile Hampshire County Council wanted to end the unfair rural/urban digital divide and ensure that all households and businesses could benefit economically and socially from the rapidly expanding opportunities that faster broadband could bring. Delivering a solution involved a marathon journey to overcome legal, planning, engineering, technical, business and funding issues.
In early 2012 the two villages became the first in the UK to benefit from the re-use of the Public Service Network infrastructure that delivers faster broadband to schools, libraries and other public sector buildings in Hampshire. Residents of Little London now have supervised broadband speeds of between 30 to 40Mbps (Megabits per second), with the Wi Fi solution for Smannell delivering 20Mbps.
The villages of Little London and Smannell featured in a BBC TV News item about broadband speeds in rural areas across the South East of England, first broadcast on 3 January 2013
Details of suppliers for your village
Below are leaflets, which you can print out, containing information about these services: