Today’s Radio 4 programme featured an excellent report on our B4RN project.

Interviewees were Barry Forde, B4RN CEO, Carole Brown from Deep Clough Farm near Littledale, and parents from Cawthorne’s Endowed School, Abbeystead, Lancaster.

Carole spoke about the difficulty in running a modern business when a reliable broadband connection is not available and the parents at the school spoke about the difficulty that their children have completing homework over a dial-up connection.

You can listen to the report here.

Over to John…..

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Most people around me in the village of Gressingham near Lancaster seem to get about 2mbps broadband when it’s working properly – not bad for a rural area! However I make a living from filmmaking and video production so needless to say I’m happy to pay a bit extra to get as much as I can out of the old creaking copper cables that hang precariously around the village.

I signed up with a high quality ISP and pay a bit extra to get 5mbps – that’s good enough to watch on iPlayer without buffering and ‘glitch free’ as long as I don’t try and play it in High Definition (HD)! But a lot of the bandwidth I need is for uploading the videos I make. All the films I produce are in full HD so they’re really big files, so before uploading I need to compress them to a smaller format (which can take hours) and then upload over another several hours. And that’s where standard ‘ADSL’ broadband really fails. Although downloading I get over 5mbps, uploading I only get 0.4mbps – and that’s the fastest any ADSL provider can give me.

But speed’s not the only problem. I’m paying about £18 a month to get that stable 5mbps, but still every month I get an additional bill for the extra bandwidth I use. Anything over 12gb/month is charged at around £2/gb extra, so my monthly bill is always twenty something pounds – and that’s with me usually uploading overnight when bandwidth is free. Reliability is a worry too; if a movie is crucial and really needs to be with a client asap then driving to the post office and paying over £10 for 9am next day special delivery of a DVD is still the best guarantee of getting it there.

However – with a B4RN connection I’ll be able to upload as much as I like, whenever I like with no extra costs. The upload is as fast as the download at 1000mbps so I no longer have to promise clients ‘next day’ delivery, instead it’ll be ‘with in 5 minutes’. In fact it’ll be so fast it’ll give the client time to review and request changes that I can implement and upload all on the same day… and all this on anything from short youtube videos to full HD feature films. Blazingly fast.

The money from the shareholders has financed the purchase of enough stock to complete the whole core route of phase 1. We are still accepting investments from the public to finance the remainder of this phase. Details on how to do this can be found here.

Here are some key points:-

• We deliver the ducting to the sites where people are ready to start digging.
• We have a machine to locate underground pipes, drains, utilities. This is state of the art and provides much more detail than what you have seen utility worker use in the streets. They normally use the small hand held type.
• We have contractors for civil works.
• We have had training from Emtelle to teach how to join the fibre ducting. Emtelle manufacture the ducting that has been supplied to B4RN.
• We have signed off wayleaves for most of the main routes now, and digging has commenced.
• We have started a sponsorship scheme where anyone can use the PayPal button to donate to the project and get their name written on the ducting as it is buried. More details on this soon.

So as you can see, lots going on. Please take a look at the video, it’s about 10 minutes long, and if you have any questions, please get in touch.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is the first report.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here is the latter one, which features Carole Brown from local company, Dalesbred Finest Meats.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Without going into detail, my wife has recently had some hospital treatment that has meant that she has had to avoid contact with other people. Nothing contagious or anything like that but no close contact was allowed for about two weeks. This meant that our children had to go and stay at their grandparents.

Now this was only a five minute walk around the corner but it could have been 100 miles away for what it mattered due to the avoidance of contact. As any parent can imagine, being separated from your children for any length of time is not a situation that most would relish and indeed we did not. So off they went with bags packed full with everything they needed for the duration of their stay, but with one useful tool; their laptops. I had ensured that their laptops would be connected to their grandparents’ wifi so that they were able to do all the things that children need to do these days, homework, email, school web site, iPlayer and so on but there was one application that really came into full use while they were away and that was Skype.

Most people will be aware of Skype as it’s the most well known of the communication applications. For those who are not it simply allows three main things; instant messaging, audio calls but more importantly, video  calls. The latter is the most exciting. All you need to make video calls is a compatible computer and webcam and a high speed broadband connection.

So our nightly routine proceeded as follows

1. Switch on laptop.
2. Log into Skype.
3. Commence video call to the children.

The call started and soon the children were chatting to their Mum quite happily, almost forgetting that it was via a webcam. Although not a substitute for being in the same room, being able to hear and see each other was the next best thing. I left them to it for the most part and was pleased to hear them chatting and laughing. Giving updates about their school day, asking how their Mum was feeling, even showing off their new haircut. Oh yes, and there was a couple of appearances from their guinea pig too! Most nights they were chatting for up to an hour, all of it being free over the web.

I think it’s safe to say that without being able to Skype, a difficult and stressful situation would have been unbearable. By the end of the week we were naturals. Even Grandma and Grandad were appearing on camera willingly!

None of this would have been possible without a good internet connection. Our connection is not too bad most of the time although we did notice some quality issues such as delayed video, choppy sound and the odd dropped call so I’d dread to think what it would be like on a slower connection.

This is why the B4RN project is so important. My story is just one example of how having a good quality internet connection can enhance a particular aspect of life but there are many others. Everyone deserves a fast, reliable and affordable internet connection, B4RN will provide that to our area. Please support it in whatever way you can.

The first one of the latest run was an excellent article in the Mail on Sunday which was a full page spread. Here is the digital version. This article prompted calls from the Daily Telegraph, Sky News, the BBC, Farmers Weekly and others. Some would make it to articles, some would not.

The first follow on from the Mail on Sunday article was a piece on BBC Northwest Tonight. It can be seen here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And so followed many blogs and web articles. Too many to mention here, (just Google B4RN and set the time at about a week), but one particularly good one was by Farmers Weekly. It gives a straightforward report of what B4RN is.

Next up, Barry Forde was called into the BBC Studio at White Cross in Lancaster for an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live with Peter Allen. Peter is well known for his slightly “glass half empty” approach, and that’s how the interview started, with comments from Peter along the lines of “this is just a publicity stunt isn’t it?”. Barry soon turned the interview around though ending with Peter saying that he “could not find anything negative to say about it”, which for those who are regular listeners, is quite rare.

The interview can be heard here.

Then came the next newspaper article, this time a broadsheet and another full page spread. Again a very positive article even if the headline was a little cheesy! The Villagers Digging for Victory.

Finally, well I think it is, unless I missed any, was an interview given by Christine Conder on BBC Radio Wales. Wales is a rural area much like ours and could easily implement the B4RN model given the right community engagement. The interview can be heard here.

In addition to this media interest, one of the management team is currently in the US on a self funded Broadband Road Trip. She has given a presentation about B4RN at the Broadband Communities Summit 2012 in Dallas which was received extremely well. The first instalment is on her blog here.

So that ended the week. A week that has seen huge media interest in B4RN, increased community awareness, increased support by our MPs. A fantastic week for B4RN and the community. The eyes of the world are now truly upon us. Many communities are watching and poised to follow when we prove what we are doing is possible.

Is that the end of the media interest? Definitely not. Phone calls were received by the team yesterday about something very good. If it goes ahead it will be great for us. Watch this space.

To end this article it’s worth mentioning that the one thing that all of the reports have concentrated on as much if not more than the broadband subject, is the community aspect. The fact that a group of people with a common goal can pull together to make it happen. It’s something that is becoming rarer these days and the fact it exists in our community is something we should be very proud of.

Keep spreading the B4RN word!

Update: Apparently we have a mention in the good news section of the latest edition of The Week. Couldn’t agree more, it certainly is good news!

Click here to view the embedded video.

this is also featured on BBC Click (1minute into show) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9711150.stm

The first sod on the first trench was turned on Saturday by Councillor Paul Woodruff, Mayor of Lancaster (picture here http://www.flickr.com/photos/martyndews/7032990167/in/pool-b4rn). Also present at the dig was local MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood, Eric Ollerenshaw.

B4RN Chief Executive, Barry Forde, pictured here with the Mayor and Eric Ollernshaw MP http://www.flickr.com/photos/martyndews/7036052887/in/pool-1957083@N21/ praised the efforts of local people.

“It’s been an emotional day”, he said, “this has been a long time in planning, and it’s fantastic finally to see the day arrive, especially as so many have tried to tell us this couldn’t be done. People here know the big telecomms companies will never get round to providing them with decent internet connectivity, and it’s in the spirit of how people do things around here that they’ve just got on an done it themselves”.

If the digging goes to schedule, and the weather is kind, the first houses and businesses should be connected to the network by June. This initiative is only possible because local residents have committed time, labour and money in an area where other companies cannot reach. From then on, people in this part of North Lancashire will have access to internet connections which are 80 times faster than the UK current average. And all this, for a £150 connection fee and £30 a month line rental.

More information on B4RN can be found here http://www.b4rn.org.uk, and a video of the start of the dig is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjL4KBUJlXw

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For more information, contact Christine Conder, c.conder@b4rn.org.uk tel. 07952 503253 twitter.com/cyberdoyle

People of grit. With spades. March 31st 2012.

Congratulations!

Thank you to all who came to the launch of the fibre dig yesterday, it was fantastic to see you all, and thank you to John Popham for livestreaming it to the world. Link here if you want to watch a snippet of the mayor Woody digging the first sod, followed by the digger driven by the farmer John Metcalfe starting the first channel to lay the duct.

 Link here to photos by Martyn

link here to photos by Walter

link here to photos by Chris

link here to video of Barry and Woody’s short speeches filmed with a phone and a wibe connection and streamed live. by Mike

link here to photos from Mike

link here to photos from Alison

It was great to see one of our local MPs, Mr Eric Ollerenshaw there with his spade, and brilliant to see so many kids digging away, they are the reason we are doing this, to bring them the connectivity they will need if we want to keep them living and working in this beautiful part of the world.

The ducting and access chambers have now arrived. Anyone who has agreed their routes with the routewalkers on the core can now arrange to start their dig. Please contact us when you are ready.

This is the community in action. A network of people. Building the network of the future.

View Full press release of the launch dig here