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[broadstairs]

BBC Breakfast had at least two visits I saw to a community in Cumbria (I think) which was activating its 900+mbps broadband, showing how they bury the ducting and talking to local residents.

Stuart

[AArdvark]

Yay.

Wish I lived in the region
Jealous. 

[Terranova667]

900Mb+  did they say what they were using ie Vectoring, Gfast, FTTP ?

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

A really excellent piece of video, in my opinion, driving home the points about symmetric 1,000 Mbps services everywhere at any distance and the exploding bandwidth requirements from the Littley daughters too. We still need the lesson on bits and bytes for the journalists though !

@ Broadstairs, B4RN are mainly in the rural Lancastrian fells in the Forrest of Bowland. Although constantly expanding their southernmost area is around Abbeystead and Dolphinholme. To the North they are into south Cumbria around Storth at the northern end of Morcambe Bay and to the east they cover Kirkby Lonsdale, The Benthams, Ireby, Cowan Bridge, Ingleton, Newby and Clapham in North Yorkshire. To those who are only familiar "South of Watford" many of these place names are quite small villages but the land area is vast and sometimes VERY rocky - see the deceptive picture below. The last time I enquired the connected count was pushing 1,700 but rates of progress can be confusing as much of the tube burying has been completed over large areas. The fibre blowing and fusing operations happen quite fast so suddenly clumps of properties go live all at the same time.

EDIT That will teach me to sketch out the B4RN area !

Here's a map of the latest sub-group joining to the south of the B4RN area but obviously with some overlap.

http://www.gbcic.uk/

[waltergmw]

Terranova667

They are using 1 Gbps P2P individual fibres to each and every property via their dual diverse routed 10 Gbps each services to their cabinets. Those connect direct on to the dark fibre all the way to their peering point in Telehouse Manchester.

Kind regards,
Walter

[Chipeater]

Living in the region and most definitely jealous, I also wish that a community group like B4RN would sprout up in my community (not enough takers for a proper internet service). Although there is an outside chance of "SuperFast" broadband coming "in the next six months" (although that has been on the openreach site for a year now )to replace the super 1.5mb. There are possibilities of Microwave broadband but a setup of £350.00 and to attain a 20mb d/l with 100GB allowance will set you back £45.99 a month. Not exactly within the reach of most locals.  Hey ho pigs might fly and we might also get 3G mobile as well.

[AArdvark]

Just go to the B4Rn Site and drool

If I could afford it, I would go.
Really nice area of the country and True fibre Broadband ........ sells it to me. 

I am so impressed what a bit of Community Spirit and a lot Technical knowhow can achieve. 
Well done to Everyone involved. 

[waltergmw]

One of the major challenges facing the Superfast deployment, who are present in parts of the more populated areas, is the fact that many lines in this part of rural Lancashire used to be Exchange Only. I.e. all the phone cables went direct from the exchange into each property without an intervening PCP green cabinet. E.g. Cockerham which has a FTTCabinet installed near their Forton PCP 1 has a significant number of EO lines connected to the more distant Galgate exchange as well as a few EO lines still on Forton even though no doubt the village claims to have VDSL. I'd guess that around half the properties around the Cockerham area are without VDSL even though there is an enabled FTTC already installed. In the fullness of time I expect there might be a race to get either an asymmetric Superfast FTTH connection** or a symmetric 1 Gbps B4RN one. In the latter case those interested must club together to raise the share cash and more importantly convene a local group to plan and then do the soft dig duct laying.

** Forton PCP 2 is apparently available for Superfast FTTH now all the way up to Dolphinholme.

[waltergmw]

@ AArdvark

You don't need a great deal of technical understanding but one such Barry Forde is sufficient.
Even he doesn't understand everything required within the peering centre and relies on TNP who are such experts.

What is absolutely vital are a lot of practical farmers who know their soft-dig land areas and what's buried there.
This includes major gas and water lines, canals, the M6 and several railways.

After that it's a matter of cajoling local teams in each area to install the tubes to EVERY house in a village including those unable to dig themselves.
That's where the community spirit is so important.

[Chipeater]

How, for instance, do you find out where the nearest "Fibre" outlet would be? to tap into.

[AArdvark]

@waltergm

Correction: "a bit lot of Community Spirit and a lot sufficient Technical knowhow" 
Still impressed.

The major problem is getting communities to self-organise, which in more rural areas piggy-backs on the existing community dynamic.
In towns/cities etc there is the problem that often there is no real community.
There are areas that have a high turn-over of short-term tenants and other transient groups that has no 'Community' to boot-strap from.
Not forgetting that it is not uncommon for neighbours to not know each other particularly well, never mind 'Community Spirit'.