Rural Village tops the fibre lay

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Dig where you live!! Just had a call from a rural village who TODAY, right now, have started to lay the first miles of their community owned fibre optic FTTH network, beating pretty much everyone else in the UK to the post.

On top of a mountain, the digger has just arrived to start the work to connect the first houses. By the end of the afternoon, this community will be able to boast initial first mile connectivity that other communities (eg Ebbsfleet) can only dream about. No copper in this network, just glass and broadband at the speed of light.

This is an unfunded project - no public sector money here - whose entire ethos of JFDI has been borne out of a deep frustration at the failure in this country to solve the massive problems that lack of true broadband has caused in rural areas. There are now very many people for whom the approach to Digital Britain by our government and telcos is now so inappropriate, slow and so yesterday, that they have taken the issue into their own hands. This will not be the last community who are talked about here in the coming weeks and months who are JFD FTTH - I know of more than several others who are very close too.

The work that has gone on to reach this stage has been startling in its ability to find the right people and companies who can help to deliver FTTH, and get them involved. There is an appetite amongst much of our commercial sector to actually get on and do this, which is not always apparent when you hear the bureaucrats and industry 'specialists' etc talking about FTTH. The drive is coming from the consumers and communities, so it is difficult to see how anyone can say the demand is not there, particularly for roll outs such as this into rural communities who have patchy mobile coverage, little or no ADSL, etc.

Photos and video to follow later. For those who think BT et al are the only ones who can afford and should deliver FTTH for UK Plc, think again!!!