FOLLOWING the announcement of BT's trigger level for Broadband activation in Alton last week, the BroadbandAlton campaign is stepping up its efforts by negotiating an alliance with a local ISP (Internet Service Provider). The BroadbandAlton campaign received a boost last week, when BT's trigger level of 350 pre-registrations was announced. This figure was higher than expected, but is considered attainable by the campaign. In the wake of this news, The Alton Herald has helped set up negotiations between BroadbandAlton and Link Connect, a Farnham-based ISP that is keen to help the BroadbandAlton cause. It is hoped that these negotiations will result in some sort of partnership, though the exact nature of this partnership is still very much under discussion.

The main basis of the talks is that BroadbandAlton has found that when a local person makes a pre-registration with their ISP as advised, many ISPs are taking a long time to log that registration with BT. Link Connect has promised that all pre-registrations received will be communicated to BT immediately, hopefully cutting the time it takes for Alton to meet its trigger threshold. Link Connect will also be offering a range of special deals to encourage local people to pre-register. These will constitute money off on set up costs, monthly bills, and cash donations to local schools.

Ron Brand, chief executive of Link Connect, explains the promotion: "Link Connect is proposing a joint promotion with BroadbandAlton and The Alton Herald, to help parents with their telephone bills, help children with homework, help local businesses to be more efficient and provide a donation to local schools. Every time a home user or business joins Link Connect, the promotion will mean that Link Connect will make a donation to a local school selected by the account holder. For every new home account we will donate £5, and we will donate £20 for every new business account.

"The promotion will run as soon as broadband becomes available in Alton. Link Connect will also allow a £5 deduction from the set-up cost if the customer completes a coupon available only in The Alton Herald newspaper. "In addition, we are reducing our standard home user charge of £29.99 per month to £25.99 for Alton subscribers. If however, the home user introduces the offer to a business, we will reduce the monthly home cost to £23.99 for as long as the business is using the service."

Peter Garner, one of the founding members of BroadbandAlton, said: "The prospect of having immediate communication with BT in terms of logging pre-registrations, is very appealing. There is nothing worse than repeatedly looking at the pre-registration barometer on the BT website, only to find that it hasn't moved. Our discussions with Link Connect are still very much in progress, and we will not commit to a partnership until we have studied the proposals very carefully. The Link Connect packages look to be OK, but we have to look into it further. We are finding that as the rollout programme continues, many ISPs are lowering their prices. The discounts offered by Link Connect still look good though. It is important to remember however, that like any ISP, if you pre-register with Link Connect, you are in no way committed to buying your Broadband services from them. I think that the donations to schools is a wonderful idea, as it means that not only will local homes and businesses benefit from Broadband services, but so will local schools. I also think it's brilliant that The Alton Herald are getting so heavily involved in the campaign, and local people can only benefit from it."

Despite the fact that talks between the two bodies are still ongoing, links have been established between all of the affiliated BroadbandAlton websites and the Link Connect website. These websites can be found at www.broadbandalton.co.uk, and www.link-connect.com.