Team B4RN Shine Over Busy Bank Holiday Weekend
September 1st, 2022
Author: Chris Conder
Posted In: Latest news
The resilience of the B4RN broadband network and the speed of #teamB4RN in dealing with faults were highlighted over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
Staff and volunteers – both in the field and on the helpdesk – were kept very busy with emergency repairs after three fibre strikes.
At first, a lot of customers were affected but network engineers quickly re-routed the cabinets, meaning many people won’t have noticed they were off. All were kept informed via the website and SMS messages.
Frank ‘the Blow’ digging in new duct.
The core splicers and engineers quickly got to the damage sites thanks to the knowledge of local champions and volunteers and the full repairs were soon underway. Especially impressive was that they knew exactly where to dig because of their ingenious method of marking the route with snippets of duct on fences!
The fibre strikes were caused by the ploughing of fields, sometimes on a hill the plough may dig in too deep, and sometimes the duct wasn’t buried deep enough, but there are fewer repairs than there would have to be if the fibre was on poles, so it is all par for the course. The teams are very skilled and even the two 288f breaks were repaired in the day with new duct laid deeper and even in one case new chambers deployed. Well done to everyone who helped, and especially our hero, Frank!
Even our COO, Tom Rigg, turned out on Bank Holiday Monday to lend a hand, he really enjoyed being ‘hands on’ and finding he hadn’t lost his edge in the field!
Duct marker (from 8 years ago) on the fence. So they know where to dig.
Tom Rigg, the COO of B4RN, and Rob Staveley, one of the key engineers.
Finished bullet with double stacked splices.
Work station.
Chamber moved out of the way nearer to the hedge.
New core and fibre duct in the new trench.
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