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[broadstairs]

Not sure if this is the right place, so please move if you feel necessary...

On BBC Breakfast this morning there was a piece by Rory Cellen-Jones on how a Lancashire village have laid 40km of fibre to connect themselves to the Net. The article can be seen here.

Stuart

[roseway]

That's a splendid effort by the community. Well done them!

[Black Sheep]

I concur, a splendid example of team-work. Quite what he's going to do with all that speed, should perhaps be the next question ?? Will the cost outweigh the benefit, or vice-versa ??

At least he'll be able to load 'Kitz' site, 1 second quicker than before. 

[kitz]

The B4RN project seems very good.  Although I was made aware of their open day a short while ago, unfortunately I had other things on today and wasn't able to attend. :/

[burakkucat]

As a shareholder in the B4RN Project, I am sure that Walter will be capable of answering any quick questions one may have on this excellent endeavour. 

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

I thought you might like a little more background information regarding this magnificent endeavour. As this is a type of Community Interest Company I hope Kitz won't mind a little promotional material.

I was last in Lancashire for the AGM in the Autumn where steady progress was reported on the eight parishes which were originally planned.
To my surprise Prof. Forde announced to the meetings that the number of parishes has now grown to 23 and that they had already buried over 40 km of fibre ducts.
Although much of the groundwork is complete at the two, dual redundant, connection nodes to Manchester, quite a bit more work is required to distribute single or small groups of single tubes around a village. Both the main node are fully operational now. The main ducts are being laid to accommodate every single property but only those accepting service have fibres into their homes. The take up is quite exceptional often at 50 % to 80 % of properties; this compares very favourably with commercial take up of around 30%. It also means they are well on their way towards commissioning the 300 needed to break even on the running expenses; e.g. of fibre hire to Manchester. Prof Forde is much more confident now of a viable project very rapidly; the successes to date clearly demonstrate a stable project worthy of further external investment or loans as required. The team are applying for a DEFRA Grant to accelerate the deployment but, with the usual convoluted processes involved, they are not holding their breath !

B4RN are fortunate that there is no real competition despite the "enthusiastic" marketing being targeted on the area by the incumbent. The B4RN team have little difficulty in convincing the residents that e.g. The excellent Bay Horse in Arkholme provided with 5.4 km of twisted pairs from Hornby and no 21CN services, is unlikely to achieve even 2 Mbps. Instead there are expectations that it might become the fastest pub in England !

I overheard several members enquiring when the project would reach their village; they were gently reminded that the sooner they formed a small local group to encourage even more supporters to apply and contribute, and then to plan soft-dig routes with the help of the organisers, the sooner they would get a service. B4RN are now accustomed to solving practical challenges. One of their latest is to convince the railway to co-operate fully rather than consider them as an infinite revenue stream. Quite naturally other solutions are being considered to get the main fibre run across to the next village of Melling. One quite costly option would be to use directional drilling under the River Lune as a one-off cost; another is to provide an overhead route perhaps with a new footbridge which would attract tourists to the local facilities. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1118128      If anybody knows of "The Fat Director" for the area please get in touch !

The project is unquestionably gaining very significant interest. (Indeed those in Ewhurst would dearly love such a scheme were it not for the spoiling tactics we are enduring.) The web site normally has a few hundred hits a day. After the BBC report it jumped a bit to a mere 47,000 hits. I suspect some will realise I too think of this as a vital demonstration to all our politicians and public servants. I had a fine time in sunny Lancashire and even got to help install 5 fibre services on the day after. I am already planning a holiday and here is my planning map !

http://wrayvillage.co.uk/CoverageAreaPhase1_2.pdf

Kind regards,
Walter

PS B4RN will be delighted if you wish to invest even as outsiders:-

http://www.b4rn.org.uk/shares

[Black Sheep]

Hi Walt.

It's looking like a great success story for B4RN, and fair play to all involved. A genuine question here, who foots the bill should a repair be needed ?? During ploughing season, we do nothing but repair cut cables etc ...... There are a multitude of other reasons why a cable repair may be necessary. Would the money come from the shareholders pot, or would the person causing the damage be held liable ?? What if it's a 3'rd party contractor working on behalf of somebody We often get instances where the cable has been damaged and nobody will admit to being culpable.

With Fibre cabling, you can't just 'piece out' a 10,20,30 mtr section where the damage is. There are limits as to the number of 'joints' on a length.

Just wondering that's all, Walt.

[waltergmw]

Hi BS,

As you can tell I'm quite excited too !

You've probably realised I've been working remotely with these folk for some time now.
There is a major difference between a Community Company and all other commercial enterprises.
They can react almost immediately to all sorts of incidents.
Firstly the vast majority of fibre runs are across fields with individual entries by the back door.
The fields are owned (or leased) by the farmers themselves and it's their services which will get cut if they don't take care.
Next the dual redundant distribution design means they can suffer a single incident without a single loss.
(Somebody else might like to think about that design too !!!!)

However property services are obviously a single route.
If that gets damaged the tube would be cut, blown back to the splice bullet one way and to the CPE equipment in the other direction.
Remember they are using Point-To-Point fibre and not GPON so the fibre isn't cobbled to another 31 services and anyway such a configuration would be quite impractical in a village environment.
(Something else the mythical "Fibre on demand" will eventually have to tackle.)
A new section of tube would replace the damaged one and the new fibre would be blown and spliced in the bullet and to a new "pig tail" in the house.

The main fibre runs have inspection / joint pits every 500 m maximum and shorter in some circumstances.
Each pit contains about an 18 m loop, just as you do - so the splicers can haul the joint into your vans, the theory being that sufficient slack is available to make a new pit with a new bullet close to the point of damage.
This is another advantage of soft dig routes as opposed to fighting the gas, water, sewage and electricity etc.
They are also very keen to ensure that most splices have zero dB loss too.
Another trick they use is a window joint where a major branch is required.
They carefully cut the sheath and coil the through-fibres uncut only splicing those necessary for the new branch.
Their cables are designed with ample spares but tailored to the circumstance; many are 12 * 12 or 8 * 12 and not the massive 240 * 12 that you often use.
(It's quite amazing how much of this new technology this wrinkly has absorbed !! )

I know this won't cover every eventuality but they have at least covered many of them.
As you know many farmers are quite resourceful, especially if it's in their own interests to get things working again PDQ.

Regarding costs, bearing in mind there are not battalions of lawyers around, a local agreement will likely be reached quite quickly without an encyclopaedia's worth of paper and memos etc. and without involving umpteen departments and job schedulers etc. etc.
It's very refreshing to see how efficiently such folk work and react !
That's one reason they are making such progress at very low construction costs.

These are only my external observations obviously.

Kind regards,
Walter

PS Do you fancy a holiday job too ?  !!!!!

[Black Sheep]

Hi BS,

As you can tell I'm quite excited too !

You've probably realised I've been working remotely with these folk for some time now.
There is a major difference between a Community Company and all other commercial enterprises.
They can react almost immediately to all sorts of incidents.
Firstly the vast majority of fibre runs are across fields with individual entries by the back door.
The fields are owned (or leased) by the farmers themselves and it's their services which will get cut if they don't take care.
Next the dual redundant distribution design means they can suffer a single incident without a single loss.
(Somebody else might like to think about that design too !!!!)

However property services are obviously a single route.
If that gets damaged the tube would be cut, blown back to the splice bullet one way and to the CPE equipment in the other direction.
Remember they are using Point-To-Point fibre and not GPON so the fibre isn't cobbled to another 31 services and anyway such a configuration would be quite impractical in a village environment.
(Something else the mythical "Fibre on demand" will eventually have to tackle.)
A new section of tube would replace the damaged one and the new fibre would be blown and spliced in the bullet and to a new "pig tail" in the house.

The main fibre runs have inspection / joint pits every 500 m maximum and shorter in some circumstances.
Each pit contains about an 18 m loop, just as you do - so the splicers can haul the joint into your vans, the theory being that sufficient slack is available to make a new pit with a new bullet close to the point of damage.
This is another advantage of soft dig routes as opposed to fighting the gas, water, sewage and electricity etc.
They are also very keen to ensure that most splices have zero dB loss too.
Another trick they use is a window joint where a major branch is required.
They carefully cut the sheath and coil the through-fibres uncut only splicing those necessary for the new branch.
Their cables are designed with ample spares but tailored to the circumstance; many are 12 * 12 or 8 * 12 and not the massive 240 * 12 that you often use.
(It's quite amazing how much of this new technology this wrinkly has absorbed !! )

I know this won't cover every eventuality but they have at least covered many of them.
As you know many farmers are quite resourceful, especially if it's in their own interests to get things working again PDQ.

Regarding costs, bearing in mind there are not battalions of lawyers around, a local agreement will likely be reached quite quickly without an encyclopaedia's worth of paper and memos etc. and without involving umpteen departments and job schedulers etc. etc.
It's very refreshing to see how efficiently such folk work and react !
That's one reason they are making such progress at very low construction costs.

These are only my external observations obviously.

Kind regards,
Walter

PS Do you fancy a holiday job too ?  !!!!!

If we're both singing from the same hymn sheet, Walt, BT/OR do provide dual feeds, from single or dual parent. I wouldn't have thought B4RN could afford to supply the dual-parent system, but admire their success thus far.

PS .......... the mythical FTTP(od) is in the throes of it's virgin trial in Deddington. Cut and paste below .................

Deddington is a small rural exchange serving around 1,400 lines and is the ideal size for the pilot, looking at the opportunities coming from a possible future fibre-only world, in which services over copper are replaced entirely with next generation voice and broadband running over fibre optic cables.
The following areas within the exchange boundary have now been released to approximately 80% of premises:
•   Deddington West
•   Hempton
•   Clifton
•   Barford St Michael
And we'll be releasing the remaining premises over the next few months.
Steve Jones, head of the fibre only exchange pilot said the people of Deddington and surrounding areas will now be able to experience a whole new online world, totally transforming the way they use the internet.
“Laying fibre optic cables to every home and business in a rural village is very challenging and we would not have come so far without the excellent support from the local community,” said Steve.
“Fresh advances in technology are pushing the boundaries for new services on an almost daily basis. So this pilot here in Deddington is very important and will help the industry better understand the opportunities arising from a fibre-only world.”
And our end-users are eager to enjoy the benefits of fibre broadband. Simon Baxter, managing director of Dijon Designs, said: “Our rural location has always been the envy of visitors, but going forward it will be our internet connection. Today our connection is around 300 times faster and this has already brought about a massive change in the way we work.”

Of course, I wish this and other projects every success. I just fear there could be a miniscule chance of the private venture facing issues sometime in the future ?? That's why BT have 'Wayleaves' that give us legal rights to work on and maintain our cables. It would only take farmer A to fall out with farmer B, or some other similar scenario for possible rebellious action to occur ?? B4RN's infrastructure is based around goodwill at the end of the day.

This may come across as all 'boo-ha', but these are questions that folk on these forums regularly ask of BT/OR. Improbable situations, but possible all the same.   

[waltergmw]

Hi BS,

I was talking about the FTTC deployment which seems to provide, once it has been trialled, "Fibre on demand" to any property connected to a FTTC. However we have recently learnt that, quite obviously, any fibre feed has to come from the associated fibre distribution node and not the FTTC. Even then, a charge of only £1000 (To be confirmed) to cover running more fibres through ducts jammed full for around e.g. 2 km to the FTTC followed by anything up to a further 3 km to the premises, is stretching reality well beyond credibility; especially as much of the outliers' twisted pair cables are direct buried in the verges.

In a similar vein, I believe all smaller size FTTCs only accommodate a single quad fibre into a single termination box without any provision for a dual feed. (There is spare capacity as only one fibre is connected to the DSLAM.) It also seems a serious engineering blunder for a design based upon 2 or 4 * 64 channel line cards only being installed with 100 or 200 twisted pair cables thus throwing away 28 or 56 unusable channels; unless the failure rate is expected to be so high that they are required as spares, but without any obvious cross-patching facility within the FTTC IDC blocks.

It seems as if the designers were not allowed to complete a carefully considered design just to compete with e.g. Virgin Media. Given the serious shortfall in FTTC capacities compared to the corresponding PCP, the problem now seems that the odd 30,000 FTTCs will require field upgrade / modification now on live services, always assuming there is sufficient termination space within each PCP. Should somebody be calling a halt now and accelerating the Deddington design ?

(Sorry this has drifted off-topic !)

Kind regards,
Walter

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

Back on topic:-

This is a recent video B4RN has just produced where you'll see a bit of snow and freezing wind doesn't stop the fibre teams.


http://youtu.be/ecXk0vbx0Ms

I believe they are making good progress with a very high proportion of Arkholme residents already connected now.
(Including my splendid B&B there.)

They are well underway in Abeystead at the other end of the network and both feeds are fully commissioned.
More fibre blowing is due this week spreading out to other villages as well as further progress along the main network trunk route.

There are a lot more videos on their web site including the February launch explanation by Barry Forde.

Kind regards,
Walter

PS @ BS,

I have just been politely reminded by the hallowed queen of B4RN, who is also a farmer's wife, that every landowner has signed a formal wayleave document allowing access for repairs. She also tells me that all farmers are "Gentlemen" as in they have good neighbourly manners ! In one respect a piece of fibre cable might just be considered by them as another sort of strange stray sheep !

K R
Walter

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

Here's more from the remarkable B4RN project.
Are you sitting comfortably ?
Theres quite a bit to watch if you have the time.

http://b4rn.org.uk/fibre-2-abbeystead

The initial videos deal with the area towards Abeystead from the Quernmore supply point whilst earlier ones were mainly around the other supply point near Arkholme. Other tubes are routed from Quernmore towards Wray whilst the Arkholme end is progressing towards Gressingham and Hornby.

When the main route is complete it will form a dual diverse design allowing continual operation in case of accidental tube damage etc.

By working from both ends concurrently the revenue increases as each building is enabled. They are achieving quite astonishing take-up rates as the symmetric Gigabit  service (with optional VOIP telephone) far outperforms any other form of broadband. Those way up on the fells only have dial-up modems in any case at present.

Kind regards,
Walter

[kitz]

Interesting article (and vid), had to smile at the fibre *singing in the bath*

[waltergmw]

@ Kitz et al,

Here's B4RN's latest news which arrived late yesterday evening. It adds more detail to my descriptions of their routings. It's quite refreshing to read how a very keen and resourceful rural group are gathering so much momentum, but there's quite obviously still plenty to do. Anybody anywhere (in the UK I think) can buy shares which will undoubtedly accelerate the ongoing works. I don't gain anything from their project but this is one substantial endeavour that really does deserve to prosper. The sooner the UK wakes up to what can be achieved with "one of the BEST decisions mankind has made**" (**Conversely paraphrasing Dr. Peter Cochrane to the HoL select committee). But you don't have to have a lovely Lancastrian accent though! If only there were more such examples, including a certain Surrey village, perhaps Politicians of all persuasions and Public Servants might open their eyes to the "Communications Rail Crash" that almost certainly can only spell yet more long term grief for the UK. Crossing fingers, the railways have stopped killing folk as they've learnt the painful lessons on how to maintain their network, and rail passengers observe other benefits. When will the communications industry catch up ?

Kind regards,
Walter

PS To Kitz, Thanks for letting me bang the B4RN drum a bit louder !!
___________________________________________________________

Hi everyone, its nice to have warmer weather at last and things are progressing even better now. We are almost ready to blow the fibre to Newton, who have financed their own dig and are joining the core route. 

Arkholme is nearly finished, and the take up rate has been amazing. As one house gets involved next door does too, and a few who don’t want a service have invested in the connection so they will be ready for when they do need it or want to sell their house.

We have had some enquiries from people wanting to buy houses in the area and they want to know if B4RN will be available at them before they even come to view the properties. We have also got people wanting to rent office space in the B4RN area, so if you know of any please do let us know.

We have information on webcams for security or viewing calving/lambing pens etc if you are interested, and we also have people putting info on our facebook page about voip (internet phones) and other things they find are useful.  https://www.facebook.com/pages/B4RN-rural-broadband/105319176241916

Please do check the news section on the website where we post videos about progress, if you can’t view the videos on your old connection we can always send a cd or dvd out to the champion in each area who can share it around. The latest video is showing the fibre getting to Jubilee Tower where BT said they couldn’t possibly go. All the news is here http://b4rn.org.uk/news

The dig towards Gressingham is starting, and Wray is now gearing up to dig as soon as the scarecrow festival is over.

Digging towards Littledale is underway and Abbeystead is nearly finished and should go live very soon, today we blew from the Hall to Lee Tenement, so there’s just another bit in the middle to blow next Wednesday. (volunteers always welcome, contact Bruce or email info@b4rn.org.uk)

The farmers are doing sterling work, some are digging themselves and others are buying shares to pay contractors.

More people have been trained to fuse the fibre including a volunteer from Quernmore who is only 15 years old, but now has a skill even before he leaves school. We are very pleased with our young apprentice.

Its really important to get involved in any way you can, either by helping as a volunteer with the digging, blowing or fusing, or by investing in the new share issue. The new issue gives a free connection to anyone investing £1500 in shares. The shares give you 30% tax back if you are a uk taxpayer, full details on the website.

If you do work for B4RN you can earn enough shares to get your connection for free, and the 1st share issue which allowed a year’s free service as well as a free connection is still applicable for those who dig, as many were delayed by the bad weather last summer.

We have started to run a help desk, staffed by the volunteers in the community. Our answerphone takes messages and someone will ring you back to help with your questions. 01524555887.

If you would like an invoice for VAT purposes please inform us, as the new accounting system we are implementing will generate them and send them to your email address.

Please inform us of your email address as soon as you get a B4RN connection, as many have changed addresses from their old suppliers and we may not know your new ones. We need the new address as a precaution to inform you quickly if there any issues with your connection, ie if we have to put new equipment in our hubs which may result in a few seconds outage or updates etc.

As more and more people around the area are being connected to B4RN, there are some great stories coming out of how having this connection is positively affecting families. Some people have already sent in their stories which have been published on the Guest Blog section of the website. These stories are great for anyone in the area that is due to or thinking about a connection and has much more impact than the usual facts and figures. So if you have a story to share email it to us at info@b4rn.org.uk and we’ll publish it on the site. If you want your name to be withheld, that’s fine, just make sure you tell us.

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

How about this for a homespun CELEBRATION without all the usual PR exaggeration !

http://b4rn.org.uk/a-grand-day-out

MANY CONGRATULATIONS B4RN - you deserve it !!


Let's hope all politicians of all persuasions can now understand how all rural areas should be urgently addressed.
Lets try and find a way forward to let every community group help themselves.

Kindest regards,
Walter