Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: Bowdon on September 11, 2018, 10:19:23 AM
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https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/09/b4rn-set-to-hit-5000-rural-uk-ftth-broadband-connections-target.html (https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/09/b4rn-set-to-hit-5000-rural-uk-ftth-broadband-connections-target.html)
Plucky rural ISP B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North), which has spent the past 6 years deploying a 1Gbps capable community built and funded “full fibre” (FTTH) broadband network to remote homes in several counties across England, looks set to hit their 5,000 connections target by around the end of this month.
The Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network remains a wonderful success story, not least due to the way in which they’ve encouraged volunteers in each area to help build the network (usually in exchange for shares instead of cash). The model also relies on local landowners (e.g. farmers) being generous and agreeing to waive their right to payment under a wayleave (access) agreement, which enables the fibre to be affordably dug through their land.
B4RN is also registered as a community benefit society, which among other things means that it can never be bought by a commercial operator and their profits will only ever be distributed back into the community. Suffice to say that the bigger they get, the further and faster they can go and this is certainly holding true today.
The unique operator first broke ground in March 2012 and initially only focused on building out their core network in rural Lancashire’s Lower Lune Valley area, but they’ve since expanded or are in the process of expanding into rural parts of Cheshire, Cumbria, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Yorkshire.
Just to give a rough idea of progress, B4RN has gone from having around 1,000 live connections (i.e. properties actually connected to their network and using the service) in 2015 to 4,836 today and their current run rate is about 150 per month. In other words, they’re roughly on course to achieve the current target of 5,000 connections during summer 2018 (this was set last year).
Barry Ford, B4RN’s CEO, told ISPreview.co.uk:
“The score on the door as of this evening is 4836 connected properties leaving us to find 164 connections to reach 5000. Our run rate is about 150 per month which suggests that we will hit the 5000 figure about the end of this month or early next month.
We have kicked off a number of new builds over the last few weeks so we should start seeing an uplift in the connection rate in a month or so, hoping to hit 300/month sometime next year.”
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Well done B4RN :thumbs:
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+1 ;D
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The unique operator first broke ground in March 2012 and initially only focused on building out their core network in rural Lancashire’s Lower Lune Valley area, but they’ve since expanded or are in the process of expanding into rural parts of Cheshire, Cumbria, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Yorkshire.
We must not forget their latest new off-shoot, B4SH (http://gigupanddown.net/), complete with Walter's ever present wheelbarrow. :)
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A wonderful story.