Rural Broadband

Broadband for rural Baughurst relied mainly on BT telephone wires until 2018 when a local Community group started installing full fibre broadband .

Today over 130 Km of fibre backbone has been laid and 600 homes and businesses have access to the speed they need .

To find more information and to see if you can get full fibre lightening fast broadband go to www.hampshirebroadband.co.uk

As you are aware the quality of the broadband service in our area leaves a little to be desired. OpenReach, the organisation that puts in place the wires and cabinets and other odds and sods, have determined that, along with other rural areas, it is not financially attractive to invest the necessary amount of cash to deliver a reasonable broadband service to our area.

To address this issue a group of individuals have been working together since 2015 to identify both the technologies required and the investment needed to upgrade our broadband infrastructure. Needless to say it’s not straightforward, if it was OpenReach would have already have been there.

In 2015, the group were happy to report that a solution has been developed and a company formed to obtain finance, own the roll-out and support users in the short and long term.

A detailed survey of our area (Wolverton, Axmansford, Baughurst, Pound Green, Stoney Heath, Browning Hill, Ewhurst, West Heath, Ramsdell, Charter Alley & Monk Sherborne) was undertaken in 2016 by broadband specialists who are experts in the range of technologies used to deliver rural broadband services. The conclusion of the specialist’s report is that the best way to deliver fast broadband into our area is by using a combination of wireless and fibre technologies.

You will be pleased to hear that your Council Tax is being well spent as this work has been supported by Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council, who kindly paid for the survey. We continue to work closely with B&DBC and Hampshire County Council to ensure their support and to make use of any assistance they may be able to offer.

In 2017 the steering committee switched its focus to the design, specification and costing of a solution. Not surprisingly there are significant costs involved in this project so we looked to local investors to assist with funding this local infrastructure scheme.

For reference – BT superfast broadband installations use a system called Fibre-To-The-Cabinet. BT use very fast fibre optic connections to roadside cabinets, you can recognise these cabinets as they have louvres on the front. Premises are connected to the cabinets using existing telephone wires. If these wires are less than 1 Km in length then superfast broadband of UP TO 24 Mbps (Megabits per second) is possible. If you are 1.5 Km from the cabinet then speeds of UP TO 15 Mbps are possible. anything more than 1.5 Km you lose the will to live which is the position that most of us are in. A further complication is that almost all of the rural telephone connections in this area connect directly into one of the 3 telephone exchanges and communicate over wires that can be several kilometres in length. Most of the alternative broadband suppliers such as Sky, TalkTalk, and Plusnet use the BT network which they rent through Openreach. Few customers get the maximum speed quoted. Given these constraints BT have no technology to deliver superfast broadband in this area.

Our team researched a number of methods to provide superfast and ultrafast broadband into a rural area such as ours.
Connecting all homes in our area directly with fibre optic cables would allow speeds of 1,000 Mbps but would cost over £3.5 million to deliver. We could not find finance for a proposal of this magnitude and let’s face it unless you’re planning to edit the next version of Star Wars online you don’t really need these speeds.
On a more realistic level the scheme which the group looked at uses wireless communication pioneered on the Isle of Arran. This scheme uses aerials on tall buildings, such as St Catherine’s Church, or aerials on thin 15 metre high masts which communicate with aerials on your house. Every connected property will be able to get 20 Mbps, many will be able to get 100 Mbps. However, as existing BT telephone wires will not be used for connecting these services into your homes a connection charge will be incurred. For those homes with the slowest connections there are grants available to cover most of these costs. As we are a Community Initiative we will ensure that costs will be competitive and the quality of service very HIGH.

As might have been imagined, given that the main communications suppliers such as BT have failed to come up with an effective solution to rural broadband, that although we are making progress it is very much a case of snakes and ladders. The very nature of our area with its scattered properties (be they homes, offices, farms, businesses…) in wooded, rolling countryside conspire to ensure that arriving at a broadband solution will not be straightforward.

In 2017 the group visited a community group called B4RN in Lancashire where their investment in fibre broadband is working very well. The broadband network is delivering speeds of 1,000Mbps both upload and download. The network uses fibre to the property. The fibre itself passes though buried ducts to protect it from environmental factors that may affect its reliability and has, in fact, proved to be very reliable. Sweden has used fibre technology for over 25 years and Israel has just spent $1 billion in upgrading their fibre based communications infrastructure. Fibre is low maintenance and the best long term technology, but like any physical point-to-point system can be expensive to install due to the costs associated with burying the fibre. We are working with several potential partners to get competitive costings for fibre broadband directly connected to properties.

As an alternative to point-to-point systems Wireless connections are attractive in physically dispersed areas such as ours. As one of these solutions uses wireless that’s not too dissimilar to what you may have at home you will be aware that the wireless signal will not go through trees or buildings, the fact that this area is quite heavily wooded makes it unsuitable as a single solution for much of our area. We have partnered with a Basingstoke company who supply a wireless broadband solution in Hannington to look at options.

A newish wireless communications system termed WhiteSpace which is not affected by trees and buildings is being backed by OFCOM, Microsoft and others. Connection speeds were low at around 10Mbps but “next generation” equipment due for approval for UK may give 40Mbps.

So, as you can see, from a practical level we anticipate delivering a hybrid system using a combination of these technologies.

We have 3 principles.

• Speed of connection will be faster than other telecom suppliers and costs will be competitive
• The investment must be long term and sustainable. “Do it once and do it right “
• Money will have to come from local people and so we will be 100% locally accountable. Returns for investors must be better than general investments.

No solution can work, or be cost effective, unless it is shared by a large number of properties. The more people who will sign up to, a faster service at a competitive price with a local guaranteed high quality service, the quicker that we can deliver .

By late 2017 the group had:

• Engaged a consultant partner who has experience in delivering many rural community Full Fibre broadband schemes.
• Employed contractors to design a network of over 24Km installed across fields, rather than along roadsides, and obtained permission from the majority of landowners
• Identified a service provider who will support and maintain internet access, provide 24/7 customer support and deliver a business grade quality of service
• Found ways to get attractive returns for local investors in the project.
• Secured investment for the majority of the costs.
• Been awarded a grant of over £62,000 from Basingstoke Council after they confirmed that there were no other plans to deliver faster broadband for the majority of the area.
• Identified 3 alternative suppliers to provide the crucial connection between the Full Fibre community network and the Internet. We are currently awaiting their responses to our tender document.
• …and, as an added plus, confirmed that house values increase when Full Fibre is connected

Our fibre community network will provide a GUARANTEED 30Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload at £36.00 per month (including VAT). For home workers, those with several active internet users or those who just want the speed a GUARANTEED 100 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload will be £60.00 per month (including VAT)

Speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps upload and download will be available

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