Practical Get Online Week

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Read more! It's all very well persuading people to get online, but it's not much good if that is a physical impossibility in their location. As ever, it is not the uber-funded who are out there JFDI!

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Once upon a time, we built a network in a matter of days - Wennet - with a SWAT team who came together to connect a notspot using funds destined to be spent on pointless and probably unread case studies. The story of that is in the book JFDI Community Broadband Wennington. (Note, please do not order from Amazon. You will never receive a copy).

However, once you get a few people online on a decent connection (that puts the incumbent to shame), others start to hassle to be connected too!

So, progress has continued. Connecting others in the vicinity, both with fibre and wireless.

Once again, there is another video of the practical work being done to bring broadband to deeply rural areas of the UK - more FiWi Pie from Lancashire.



And it's nice to add that Rory's Reivers contributed their travel money from the #rbc10 conference to buy these nanos. Far better use of the money than giving it to over-paid suits on expense accounts. So, one month to the day since the conference and two new links have been put in as an interim measure until fibre can be laid to bridge that gap. However, fibre backhaul may be arriving via a different route, and then these wireless bridges will be re-used to connect up the next two communities who are waiting patiently for any sort of connection.

See? FiWi Pie, we love it!

(Oh, and UK Online Centres.... these videos are exactly what you should be using to promote Get Online week. Tweet them and share them! We have got to work together. That includes those with wellies and no dosh, AND those with posh t-shirts, badges, flags, banners, balloons etc.)


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An every day tale of farming folk.

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Read more! An important video
This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com

Why digital technology is important to me. And my family. And my farm.

This video has been made for Sheffield Docfest Digital Revolutions to highlight how technology has changed a farmer's wife's life. Watch, enjoy, comment, tweet, and share!!


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Radio Lentil - Broadband Interviews & Video

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Read more! Radio Lentil offers broadband podcasts, and during the next week we shall be playing a series of interviews conducted at Rory Stewart's broadband conference in Penrith yesterday. Many thanks to Mark Holdstock, who many of you will know from the BBC programmes You & Yours and Farming Today.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com
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In the meantime, you cannot miss this must-see broadband video

which for many was the highlight of the conference - Chris Conder's story of laying the first rural fibre to the home.
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Power to the people (JFDI)

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Read more! OK, now we have the next two episodes of the JFDI FTTH dig in Wray. For those within the industry, it seems there is quite some interest in the approach taken, which whilst not necessarily upholding the highest professional standards of industry has allowed many to consider that there are other routes to the superhighway than those which take years and cost billions.

Let's face it, the truth of the matter is that for 25 years, industry and government have been sitting around on their arses talking about FTTH. I and others have been growing increasingly frustrated, despite involvement for me for only half that time, at the apathy shown and barriers invented to prevent it happening. Those affected MOST by this failure are, of course, the ones who will inevitably pay for it in the long and short run - the consumers and the taxpayers.

It had to get to the point where the people said, "Enough is enough. If you are just going to sit there talking, we will get on with it." And lo and behold, it has now started. It's not a great surprise, in other countries similar Dig Where You Live projects exist too. It's just that the majority of those have had the support of utility companies, or local and central government funds.

We can no longer pretend that the incumbents are the only ones who can play in this area, and accept that more and more people are going to start taking matters into their own hands to take our families, businesses and communities into the world of 21st century fibre optic communications that many other countries are already well and truly entrenched in. Pun intended.

It is to be hoped that the Digital Britain report shows an awareness of the DEMAND for this level of connectivity TODAY, and stops assuming that all internet users are muppets, willing to be BROADCAST to and be PASSIVE. We are not. As a post-industrial exporter myself (one of those with so-called digital skills), I and many thousands of others have been watching the Department of Trade and Industry (and now DCMS too) allow a private company or three stymie our business development, hinder our economic growth, restrict our productivity, and force our children to suffer limited levels of interaction with what can only be termed as the 'real world' these days considering how much is on the Internet that they need to engage with. Ironic huh?

On with the show......
Part 1 - in the stables. Splitting the fibre to feed to two homeworkers with Lucid star, Dave!

Part 2 - in the utility room. Showing the end connects being done, also starring Dave.


There are lots of photos taken by Chris on Picasa to peruse too.

Nice to see the war of the Roses may finally be well and truly over. This is a northern project, with players from Yorkshire and Lancashire working extremely well together! Am just off to see Chris now (from Cumbria - by 'eck us northerners can cross borders, just as fibre can!) so will report back when I have had a play on the first rural fibre connection within the UK I have ever managed to get my hands on! And it ain't for want of trying ;o)

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All three vids of the JFDI FTTH crew

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Read more! Not sure what the BBC are playing at. We could have had a half hour series on this dig on prime time TV judging by the amount of interest!! All three videos are now on Youtube and the links are all here for you, with the third hot off the press this very morn. With suggested music to accompany this fab feat!


I need to stress that one of the most important reasons for this JFDI FTTH exercise is the fact that there is no ADSL in the vicinity. Whereas we have been pushing for FiWi for years (Fibre--> wireless), these connections are having to be wireless-fibre because of the lack of fibre in close proximity, nor decent copper for that matter.

This situation is rife across rural UK but has managed to vanish under the radar over the years, despite attempts to highlight the huge number of notspots and the impact this has on rural regeneration, quality of life, innovation, business development and so on.

However, there are some advantages to this route of starting with wireless backhaul. Firstly, the wireless connection is symmetrical and so users can upload and download at the same speed. The importance of upload speeds and capacity should never be under-estimated in this age of consumer generated content and prosumers. Secondly, the options for increasing the backhaul are open to competition and technology neutral - no reliance on nor even presence of copper capable of taking over from the wireless here. And unsurprisingly, those operators wishing to get involved in this type of rural connectivity have been coming out of the woodwork even prior to this video series.

Enjoy!

"Ain't no stopping us now" - Part 1 of the Great British fibre diet starts

"C'mon on baby, light my fibre" - Part 2 of the JFDI FTTH dig

"Pickin a bluebell in the merry month of May" - Part 3 of the rural fibre dig video series.


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