It is the householder’s responsibility to get the duct from the boundary of their property to their house wall.  B4RN can only install this world class service at this price if each household helps, or finds friends/neighbours to help with the installation.  No other company can install a service anything like this at anything like this price… householder help is part of what makes this achievable.B4RN will advise on the route through your property but the duct route is the householder’s responsibility, as is recording the route.  Photographs are a simple way of recording the route.

The normal installation is for B4RN to take orange duct that has been laid through the property grounds, change to black duct as it comes above ground (UV stabilised) and run it up the wall to a small house entry box (the size of a spectacles case!). This contains a gas block that prevents gases like radon or methane entering your house. These are not likely hazards, but B4RN is intent on following best practice for safety!From the house entry box small hole will be drilled through the wall and a white 5mm duct will be fed through the hole into the backplate which is fitted to your inside wall.

This work can be done by DIY householders or by trained local volunteers.

The duct is then ready for B4RN technicians to bring fibre into the property, terminate it, and fit the B4RN wifi/router onto the backplate. You won’t need to use your old router anymore.

B4RN will install their own equipment on an inside wall of your home. This is the equivalent of your current router and has WiFi and 4 gigabit wired connections. This is supplied as part of B4RN’s £30/month service fee so costs you nothing extra, but it does remain the property of B4RN.Comparable Wi-Fi performance to modern routers from the likes of Sky, Talk Talk etc.  Some customers have reported that the WiFi may be slightly weaker range than the latest BT Home Hub, but the underlying Internet service speed is a lot faster!

The latest B4RN router has two wireless-N antennas inside: a 2.4Ghz and a 5Ghz. The 2.4Ghz has greater range but limited speed whereas the 5Ghz has faster speed but limited range. Both antennas are active so you can mix and match which devices around your house use which antenna, or let your equipment decide automatically.

An Internet Service Provider is an organisation which provides you with connectivity to the Internet. As an ISP, B4RN will provide you with an IP address and the rest of the techie things you need to get online. What else does an ISP do? Well, strictly speaking nothing. Once you are online you access a range of services that are hosted within the Internet and your ISP may offer some of those services as well in competition to all the other providers who are not your ISP but have services you do want to consume. For instance you will want an EMAIL account and your ISP might offer you one. It’s generally not a good thing to take email accounts from your ISP as it locks you into taking your connectivity from them forever unless you don’t mind changing your email address every time you shift ISP to get a better deal. So most people these days go with someone like GMAIL to maintain vendor independence. They give you huge capacity mailboxes and in my experience as good a service as any ISP. There are plenty of others out there too, take your pick.

Apart from email there really are not any services that ISPs offer you anymore. At one time you could get web hosting and storage but again there are numerous alternative providers who offer much better deals who are not ISPs and many ISPs have pulled out of that service area as it makes them nothing and costs them to support it.

So, really what your ISP needs to do is give you a fast reliable link into the Internet and you then sign up to take whatever services you want from suppliers who live in the Internet cloud. I think we are all familiar with the idea of clicking on the icon for Facebook or YouTube or iPlayer or iTunes and hundreds of others. These are all services and applications and nothing to do with your ISP.

Finally – a good ISP should offer friendly, responsive customer tech support. Although B4RN don’t have a 24hr overseas call-centre, they do have a dedicated local support team that can be called (in office hours) or emailed. They will not rest until your problem is sorted… and experience shows problems get fixed far quicker with B4RN than any other telecoms provider.

The B4RN customer support techdesk:
tel: 01524 238499 / email: techdesk@b4rn.org.uk

You will have one gigabit connection that serves all the devices in your household.  There are 4 network ports on the B4RN router. You could for example connect one to your computer, one to your TV, one to a games console and one to another device etc.  Remember you also have the built in WiFi.  If you have lots of computers and smart TVs at home, and you need more than 4 wired network connections, you can buy a Gigabit switch which will give you even more connections.  Because B4RN is so fast you will find none of the connections feel slow even if lots of users in your house are busy online at the same time.Please see the Customer section of the B4RN website Resources page to find a PDF guide to extending your home network.

B4RN will not do this for you but they may advise you. Installing a network cable is analogous to running a telephone extension cable, which people would typically tack to skirting boards or run under the edge of the carpet.  If you are looking for installation of network sockets in walls, then most electricians would be able to provide this service, although you may wish to consider buying a TV with WiFi built in as these are pretty much standard these days.Please see the Customer section of the B4RN website Resources page to find a PDF guide to extending your home network. We also run a friendly club on Friday afternoons at Melling 2-4pm where volunteers will help and advise you.

You will need to sign up to a third party VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service.  This provides a telephone service that uses your internet connection. The calls are generally cheaper than on a traditional phone service, and you won’t need to pay line rental anymore. B4RN subscribers have found market leaders Vonage provide a good, consumer friendly service, however, there are many alternatives you can find by googling for “VoIP service”. If you do decide on Vonage then ask us, or your local champion or friend to send you a ‘refer a friend’ link by email, this will get you a £50 Amazon voucher each if you subscribe.

The VoIP provider will provide a small device that will plug into your B4RN router.  Your home phones will be plugged into this in the same way your phones are currently plugged into your master socket. There are different types of boxes but they are all small and unobtrusive.

Please see our PDF guidelines on the Resources page for further details.

If you currently use BT or another quality phone provider, yes – your existing number can be ported over to the VoIP service just like a mobile number can be ported to another mobile network.  It’s also trivial to purchase additional lines if these are required.  Note that we have had some reports that some third party companies can make transferring your number difficult.  You should double-check with Vonage (or whatever VoIP provider you choose) before you make the switch.Old phones will still work on most VoIP services including Vonage. You must get the new VoIP service working and ask them to move your number to them, if you cancel your current contract first you will lose your number. They will give you a new one, but many wish to keep their current number, so please follow the instructions on our help files.

Please see our PDF guidelines on the Resources page for further details.

No, you can choose to cease your landline entirely if you wish.  However, it is important to understand that if you currently have a landline with a wired telephone connected to it, then you will currently be able to use it to make a telephone call in the event of a power loss to your property.  Your internet connection on the other hand is not usable in the event of a power cut (unless you invested in a UPS to keep the router powered), which means that any telephone service that makes use of the internet connection would not be available.  If you own a mobile phone, this is probably not a concern as your mobile can be used to make an emergency telephone call if you have signal, if required.  However, if you don’t own a mobile phone, don’t want a mobile phone and do wish to be able to make a phone call in the case of a power cut, then you may wish to invest in a battery pack (a UPS). This will keep your service working for a set amount of time, depending on the size of unit you buy. We have written a help guide about these for your information.Please see our PDF guidelines on the Resources page for further details.