\n“They made it clear that we just weren’t economically viable and people within rural communities ought to expect bad broadband.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u200b<\/span>In this story of a 21st century barn raising barn is, naturally, spelt B4RN and its construction began in Lancashire in 2011 where the pace of life was matched by the internet link. \u201cWe live out in the high hills just behind Lancaster and had very, very bad broadband and there was no chance that BT could improve it in any way. They made it clear that we just weren’t economically viable and people within rural communities ought to expect bad broadband,\u201d explains Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN) co-founder, Monica Lee. B4RN is a not for profit, community benefit society behind a fibre optic broadband network, run by dedicated local teams with the support of landowners and volunteers. It offers 1,000Mbps symmetrical broadband to every property in its coverage areas, for \u00a330 a month.<\/p>\n
Lee and, now B4RN chief executive, Barry Forde, along with other volunteers, set the venture up with a very local focus on their community in and around Arkholme (population 340) and Quernmore (570).\u00a0 \u201cOur plan was quite small to start with,\u201d says Lee.\u00a0 \u201cSeven parishes, we thought, would be enough to keep us going with the service income. We are luckily right near a major node so that we wouldn’t have had far to dig to access the whole network. So we were thinking, we’ll do this, and we did it as a community run benefit society. I think that was really important because we were very clear from the start that no one wanted to make money out of this. It’s not a money-making operation as such.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Lee reveals a sympathy for her commercial adversaries that\u2019s probably unheard of elsewhere in the telecoms sector.<\/p>\n
The operation has shareholders who receive a fixed 5% dividend and have a full say in the direction of the company. People can either pay for shareholding or they can, \u201cin effect earn digging shares\u201d by lending a hand to the construction of trenches needed to carry the fibre optic network that B4RN has built and continues to build. This enables farmers and other landowners who allow B4RN to install its network on their land, to receive a shareholding based on the length of cable installed on their property.<\/p>\n
\n\u200b
\n\u201cIf shareholders get \u00a31,500 worth of shares either through digging or buying, then they get a free connection. They still have to pay service fees, but it encourages people to take part in B4RN, which is essentially what it’s all about,\u201d says Lee.<\/p>\nBut Lee emphasises that the venture is for the communities: \u201cAny money it does make goes back to the community, we want that to be absolutely clear. We aren’t out to make lots of money for shareholders; that’s not our aim. Our aim is to provide broadband for rural communities,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Perhaps ironically, B4RN\u2019s customers are getting a \u201cgold standard\u201d broadband network that is currently not available to most urban internet users. It comprises high data-carrying capacity optical fibre \u2013 1Gb a second upload and download \u2013\u00a0all the way into the home of the user. In towns and cities what is often called a fibre connection is not entirely fibre. The fibre connection ends at the junction box and from there to the home it is copper cable as in the days when the Post Office ran telecommunications. So unless a house is close to the cabinet it will get a lesser service compared to a full fibre connection like B4RN\u2019s.<\/p>\n
And the B4RN fibre is all underground \u2013 \u201cfuture-proofed and sustainable\u201d.<\/p>\n
There are, however, some uphill stretches in B4RN\u2019s journey: \u201cOne of the early struggles which we still have is that we rely not just on the volunteers to do the work, but also on the landowners to provide wayleaves for the cables going under their ground. That is where farmers could certainly make a fair amount of money, normally, for cables going under their ground,\u201d says Lee, adding: \u201cWe’re relying on them to donate the wayleaves, which they have been very, very good about doing. They do benefit too, because as it goes through their land, they get communication ability as well as increasing the value of any properties on their land.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n“We were very clear from the start that no one wanted to make money out of this.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Lee reveals a sympathy for her commercial adversaries that\u2019s probably unheard of elsewhere in the tech sector. And it\u2019s arguably a summary of the commercial power of the socially focused B4RN arrangement model over a shareholder model. \u201cI do feel sorry for the incumbents,\u201d she declares. \u00a0\u201cThey have to pay for wayleaves, they have to serve the needs of their shareholders and any money that comes in has to then go straight out to shareholders. Whereas B4RN or its equivalents come along and say, \u2018Okay, you give us the wayleaves but any money then that comes in goes back to you.\u2019 It goes back to the community. It’s a much nicer model for people to work with, so people get quite enthusiastic about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting a project off the ground based on voluntary contributions clearly has to first have a willing, or at least a well-motivated, community. Lee acknowledges the value of the early support provided by her neighbours: \u201cWe wouldn’t have got anywhere if we didn’t have a host of volunteers, who got totally enthusiastic, believing, quite rightly, that they’re doing something long-term for their community.\u201d
\nIn the seven years since B4RN was launched it has changed and grown and is now operating outside its original Lancashire home. Lee explains how new hurdles have emerged since the business achieved lift off, highlighting \u201cmoving from an entirely volunteer structure to a management structure that maintained the volunteer ethos. We’re still doing it, and some people still find it hard work and others don’t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n“We wouldn’t have got anywhere if we didn’t have a host of volunteers, who got totally enthusiastic.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Another problem has arisen from success. \u201cA real challenge we’re facing now is we’re so popular, because we’re just charging \u00a330 a month for a full 1,000 Mb\/s service, without different levels of service or charging structure,\u201d Lee explains. She estimates that some 5,000 people will be connected to B4RN by the end of this year.\u00a0 \u201cThe B4RN network is now greater than the area within the M25, though with fewer people.\u201d<\/p>\n
She goes on: \u201cSo as people from one community have seen what their neighbours are getting, then they want to join in. And we’re trying to make it very clear that it’s not us going to them; they are joining us and they need to raise the cash for the fibre and everything. We’ll help them, but it’s not us providing a normal commercial service; it’s people joining in to become part of the whole network.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new communities have to find their own volunteers and landowners who are willing to provide access to their land for shares in the operation. They then become sub-communities with the support of B4RN. Lee says that until about a year ago, these sub communities were contiguous to the Lancashire original. Now there are groups setting up in areas quite distant from the northern root including Surrey and Norfolk. This recent growth, Lee says, has been seeded over the past two years by government support for fibre networks that extend into the home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government is trying to work to find ways to let groups set up on their own,\u201d says Lee. \u201cOne of the things that it has done is make it easier for groups to use the dark fibre, which is the main trunk routes that BT, Virgin and all the others have got in the ground, which normally people wouldn’t have access to. But now they’re opening that up so that companies … not anybody, but companies like B4RN can go to them and say, \u2018I would like to lease some part of your route there.\u2019 Of course once we can do that we don’t have to dig down to Norwich \u2013 we can lease the routes and work that way. So now it’s open for all sorts of sub-groups to work together in different ways, using existing structures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee believes B4RN has revived fading communities by employing people and, more significantly, upping economic activity by providing good broadband. She says the better quality connection has helped increase the numbers of people working from home in some regions. And she says there are growing numbers of people and businesses seeking to rent properties that are connected to the B4RN network. \u201cThere is clearly now a desire to move into the B4RN area, which is different from ten years ago when everyone was desperately trying to leave the countryside to go and find jobs elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
A particular feature of B4RN in her region of Lancashire has according to Lee, been in drawing together the incumbent agricultural and relative newcomers. \u201cB4RN has affected the communities quite dramatically in places,\u201d says Lee. \u201cThis is one of the things that particularly interests me, because I’m a smallholder and at the same time an academic. So I’ve lived with two hats, the rural and the academic.\u201d The rural communities around Lancaster where Lee lives include academics from the university and the \u201cvery deeply agricultural\u201d locals. Lee says the two groups typically used to \u201cjust slide across each other and never really talk.\u201d B4RN, she says has given the two communities a common purpose to work together \u201cbecause everyone wants the broadband.\u201d She continues: \u201cThe farmers have got the land and the digging equipment, and the ability and time, and the academics have got the money to put in, which quite frankly is also needed.<\/p>\n
\n“Perhaps ironically, B4RN\u2019s customers are getting a \u201cgold standard\u201d broadband network that is currently not available to most urban internet users.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u200b
\nMost of the volunteers are, Lee says, retired, \u201csitting at home doing nothing.\u201d When B4RN came along \u201cthey came out and they dug, and they helped, and got a new lease of life.\u201d Not all of them were inclined or even up to wielding a shovel. \u201cYou don’t have to. People could come along bringing cups of tea and cake. That\u2019s as much use as actually digging half the time.\u201d<\/p>\nSo it has, according to Lee become a community activity, digging, helping in other ways and making a day of it \u2013 a modern day barn raising. But once the party is over and the fibre is in the ground, does the newly found bonding between the formerly disparate communities return to their old ways?
\nLee says there has been some preservation of the social ties that emerged through the B4RN construction period but she is \u201cvery concerned about keeping the community spirit going from B4RN.\u201d
\nShe emhasises that B4RN is not unique as a local broadband-building venture. She believes its success to date has been helped by the combination of her background in developing \u201ccreative organisations\u201d and the \u201cworld class\u201d understanding of network design of Forde. \u201cCertainly when we were starting five years ago, there were a lot of different groups starting, but B4RN is the only one who’s really carried on in this way. I think that’s largely because of the people involved.\u201d<\/p>\nFor the future Lee expects the numbers served by B4RN to grow slowly. But her personal focus remains on the prospect of being able to plough some of its income into the communities it serves: \u201cWith our current 5,000 customers paying \u00a330 a month, you quite quickly get a lot of money coming in. At present we’re using that on running costs because we are growing so much, but in the longer term there is a real potential to try and do good to the communities. Putting money back into the communities, so even at 5,000 connections, there’s a lot of benefit that can be given.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd one of the next challenges, will be how to do that in a way that’s fair and fully beneficial.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tempting to conclude that, even in the world of information technology, the old ways might be best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Time for a cuppa: but no copper to be seen. A north Lancashire community has built a hyper-fast broadband network with a shovel and a nice cup of tea. Life … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,3,45,57],"tags":[159,1017,67,161,160,224,111],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-civil-society","category-columns","category-uk-ireland","category-utilities","tag-broadband","tag-finalistnembhard","tag-june-2018","tag-monica-lee","tag-rural","tag-stakeholder-economy","tag-the-dentist"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/themintmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Dentist_Monica_digging-33737-1024x683.jpg\")