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Fibre broadband for North Norfolk

BT and the government has let us down. No surprises there. Norfolk will have a good number of 'red' areas, where there is no prospect of decent broadband, perhaps for ever. The best we tax-payers can hope for commercially is satellite, WISP or 4G.

There is hope however. Broadband For the Rural North (B4RN) has installed its own fibre across the fields of the North of England to over 3000 houses and businesses. It is fibre all the way to the premises and provides 1Gbit/s down and upload speeds, with unlimited data, for £30 a month. The scheme is run as a non-profit-distributing organisation.

A group to the south of Norwich, and a more recent one in East Ruston, are looking at ways to improve Norfolk broadband including the B4RN option. There will of course be no help from any government, but they hope to connect an ever-increasing number of villages.

B4RN is very much a self-help approach. Each parish or village would have to set up a team to ask residents what they want, plan how the installation will be done and raise money. This effort is well worth it as they will finish with a service much better than any provided commercially, even in cities at very high cost.

To give an idea of what is planned here are:

a description of how it might be done in one parish

a set of pictures of how the B4RN installations are done

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(C) Peter Scott 2017

Last edit 12 May 2017