Halton Church Gets Free B4RN Service

February 17th, 2021
Author: Mark Gray
Posted In: Latest news

A church in Halton has been singing the praises of B4RN.

St. Wilfrid’s was connected earlier in February as part of the ‘B4RN Village’ project, which is well underway there.

The church is receiving a free service, like all places of worship on the B4RN gigabit broadband network.

St. Wilfrid’s Church Warden, Melissa Bowring, emailed B4RN to say they’re already feeling the benefits.

She said: “I am writing to thank you all very much for giving us the B4RN service for free. We as a church very much appreciate this.

“As you know, as with many organisations, the church has suffered financially through the pandemic, so to receive broadband in this way is really fantastic.

“We are already getting benefit from it as it has enhanced our ability to film the services for the members of our congregation who are unable to attend church. We have also found that people have joined in with the services virtually who have not been regular church attendees before.”

Connecting the church was a delicate job, since it’s an historic, listed building. Every effort was made to reduce the visual impact. A narrow trenching technique was used to cross the grounds while the internal installation is hidden behind the organ panels.

Local volunteer Andrew Walker says he’s happy to share how they did it: “The information may be of use for any other historic churches looking at how to install as discretely as possible. I do know of other churches which have found that the organ housing provides the ideal spot to hide away network equipment. If anyone is asking for advice on that, I’d be happy to have a chat or show them what we’ve done.”

Andrew added there was another perk to the church getting B4RN – the chance to use VoIP: “Another tangible benefit to the church is that B4RN will allow them to have a telephone for the first time – I don’t think there has ever been a BT connection there.”

St. Wilfrid’s Church Facebook Page can be found by clicking here.

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