Outside In is Essential

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Read more! Even in 2012, we continue to see half-hearted attempts by local authorities, government and telcos in addressing the rural broadband problem and the deprivation it continues to inflict. Even comprehending the issues the lack of connectivity is causing, let alone the solutions, appears to be beyond the wit of man if you believe some of the latest thinking coming out of local and central govt.

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


I've just returned fom a drive along the Mallerstang Valley where not a single property has anything approaching broadband, despite NWDA wasting £60k on a non-functional wireless solution (on top of the abject failure that was Project Access) to try to live by the spin that Project Access actually achieved *anything*.

I know that particular road well - my parents live and work at the other end of it. I know where mobile coverage starts and ends to the foot, and I know the plight of the Parish Council during the last 8+ years in trying to get BASIC communications into that population. And not just the permanent population but also the transitory one who pass through in ever-growing numbers along the Settle Carlisle railway.

For railway buffs, not only is Outhgill graveyard a striking and heart rending reminder of those who lost their lives building a railway through this deeply inhospitable landscape, but near the Moorcock Inn an entire train is buried after one of three horrendous crashes on this section of railway line. (See this S and C Tribute for more info). As I (and many others such as Libby Bateman, our local Digital Hero) have previously said, if back in 1867 they could build an entire railway, with mind-blowing viaducts and bridges, surely we can lay some 9 or 14mm fibre??

I proposed a solution at least 6 years ago to solve the Garsdale and Mallerstang problem, which revolved around the railway and the GX fibre plus wireless where the fibre dig was going to be prohibitively expensive - a few homes up Grisedale and a couple hidden from a wireless signal. As ever, the workable solution which involved the community and a little ingenuity was dismissed outright by the NWDA and a potential public, private, community partnership binned in favour of a purely private (but publicly funded) solution which subsequently has proven to be a waste of money. Sound familiar?

At the start of this week, one of the householders near the Mallerstang (which is very close to where Lambing Live was filmed last spring) rang asking if I had 270m of spare fibre or duct. I personally generally carry slightly less than this around in my pocket, so several unanswered calls later to suppliers and a chance conversation with Chris Conder (about where our lives were vanishing in helping solve problems for free when there are millions in the public purse to find solutions) tracked down some community owned armoured fibre. Within literally a few hours, that fibre had been purchased and was wending its way back to be laid in the ground within hours of that first call. No committees, no incomprehensible DEFRA forms, no negotiating with councils or BDUK, no State Aid concerns - just action. True JFDI, and the job is now done whilst the trench was open. Hours, not months or even years later.

On driving down the Mallerstang this evening, it became obvious how many of those disconnected properties are businesses, struggling like hell to survive off the natural tourist trail, far from services, on a road which I know from experience is often omitted from any gritting programme in winter, and yet who have created a diverse community with huge potential and initiative. The Digital Dales logo was created there by a brilliant graphic designer, there are B & Bs, holiday cottages, a company which makes cakes, an architect, forestry, and who knows what other exciting rural businesses. Oh yes, and farms. The lifeblood of rural communities.

What is being proposed for this and similar rural and remote communities to follow the unsuccessful wireless network and to regenerate this tiny but vital rural area? Well, until Rory Stewart and Tim Farron decided to throw their weight behind the rural mobile broadband need, it was satellite. In fact, it is only in the last few days and weeks that "hard to reach areas" in Cumbria even got a sniff at upgraded 3G and the 4G trials, and even now it seems that the pilot projects in Cumbria will be the first to benefit rather than those in most need like the Mallerstang, and the many similar valleys around rural England who currently have NOWT in the way of acceptable communications.

We all know that necessity is the mother of invention. We celebrate the Keep Calm and ... Bury Fibre mentality at every opportunity. Yet, we are failing to support the communities who can put this into action and create the reality which will change all of our lives. These communities can substantially reduce costs in fibre lay, and are willing to grant wayleave as long as the community retains ownership of that fibre and it is not gifted to some greedy corporate or similar who wishes to screw the community forever more. The benefits of community FTTH approaches are regularly and increasingly logged worldwide as THE SOLUTION. However, instead we would seem to prefer to create bureaucratic hurdles at every opportunity, hold infinite meetings, and relegate those furthest from civilisation and services to be "outsiders" for as long as possible.

Subjecting these people to the ignominy of being unable to access even the most basic of online services, let alone innovate and explore the potential of individuals, communities, businesses, is a cardinal and inexcusable sin that should cause sleepless nights (or, IMHO, far worse) throughout Westminster and every single 'corridor of power'. For the townies who think we all make lifestyle choices about where we live, these rural citizens have in many instances been residents for generations and are often as hefted ('heafed' or 'heughed' in my bit of the Dales) and are as vital to the well-being of the land as the sheep and walls and heather. Not transient but permanent. As old as t'hills, almost literally.

It is far beyond the time where thrifty communities and individuals should be allowed access to pots of money which telcos deem insufficient to even write a viability study or get out of bed for, let alone lay fibre and connect people, despite fast-growing proof that communities can JFDI with the money that is available, whilst telcos and local authorities simply cannot.


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ISPs must be stopped from screwing dial up users IMMEDIATELY

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Read more! I went round to a house tonight to test the WiBe. The lady had been in Cyberbarn this afternoon and seen the WiBe on the desk. She's on dial up, but actually came round to get advice about her printer. I dropped in to see her this evening on the way home....and unearthed a horror story.

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



Her hours at work have recently been cut and the family need to tighten their belts, as I'm sure many in this country can relate to so she had been going through their bank statements to see what could go. She spotted the AOL direct debit at £30 a month, and mentioned it to me whilst I was trying to fix the printer. I pretty much fell off the computer chair. "£30??? You are paying £30 for dial up?" "Yes, I hadn't thought about it but we have been paying AOL that amount for years and years. We know we can't get broadband, no-one can round here, so I'd never really thought about it, until today after coming to Cyberbarn, and then seeing it on the bank statement."

"Cancel it right now," was my advice. "I'll find you a better solution in the next day or two." It's a promise I intend to keep. And I am now also going to leaflet every house in that notspot and tell them to check the amount they are paying for dial up.

But the ISPs should be deeply ashamed of themselves. I know AOL have a huge number of customers, but a company that size must know that they have long-term customers, to whom neither they nor BT are able to offer a 21st century product like ADSL broadband, and should be ensuring that every single customer on dial up is being treated fairly and not being completely ripped off in this manner.

Yes, there are many of us guilty of not checking our statements to make sure we are not paying monies we needn't, chasing up a better deal on our utilities etc, but some of the onus should fall on the companies too to NOT RIP PEOPLE OFF like this. There is absolutely no excuse for a company to maintain customers on age-old tariffs which are clearly over-priced and bear no relation whatsoever to the service being offered.

Let's keep this 'Give an Hour to Help People Online' going. If you know ANYONE still on dial up, go and ask them how much they are paying and help them contact Ofcom to report their service provider so the extent of this problem can be seen and dealt with, and help them to find a better deal for their connectivity.

And if you are an ISP and still have dial up customers, especially those who must have been with you for at least most of this millennium, then give them a free year to make up for the ludicrous and immoral over-charging which has been going on for far too long.

Dial up should be free anyway - it's no use to man nor beast in this day and age and it costs peanuts to provide. Shame on you AOL and the rest of you running the same scam, check your customer records and start sorting this disgraceful situation out immediately.








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Answers for TSB and others #nd11

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Why Penrith and Eden matter more than you think

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Read more! You are not coming to an ordinary place.......here in Eden. In fact, 2 doors down from me, wireless networks were being played with by a certain Lord, and Marconi top dog, nigh on 80 years ago.

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

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The man who became Secretary of State, Postmaster General and Marconi management lived in my village. He was born, as far as I can discover, two doors away from where I sit right now as I type this. We had wireless before many cities had a clue what it was. Just as we had electricity and pure water earlier than urbanisations.

So, come to Eden this weekend, and enjoy being in a place known for innovation. Know that you are within a few miles of many, many other rural communities like my village, all of whom have stories to tell that put the majority of cities to shame.

Find me a city that put electricity in to homes before the village I grew up in or the village that I live in now. Look on Youtube for the places that have done fibre. Not faffed around with economically viable arguments, but places where it has been done because the PEOPLE need it.

Just like water. Just like our single light bulb in every house in the 1920s here on my road. (Courtesy of Ted Stone and his forefathers, many of whose descendants I know today). And sometimes, just because it can be done, like Ted's cutting edge wireless experiments as a kid that led him to head Marconi and become a Lord. A country boy from Eden in Cumbria, no less!

Innovation and solutions shouldn't start in cities........... they should, and will, start here in rural areas.

No names mentioned, but

Forget that at your peril.
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Taking FTTH/FTTB to the next level...

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It may be that there is a way to solve many problems in one fell swoop - FTTH, prime agricultural land becoming scarce, lack of green spaces in cities, the energy crisis, urban and rural regeneration, job creation, and no doubt more problems will come to light as we discuss this potential solution.

We all know that Korea, Hong Kong, etc have all, apparently, been able to solve universal FTTH purely because of multiple dwelling units. (We also all know that this is not **strictly** true!!) However, in Britain, we have a huge variety of problems, all of which universal FTTH could solve if we just got on with it.

What we need to do is not build high-speed railways (£14BN starting in 2017 vs FTTH £14BN finished in 2017) but build new farms in both towns and the countryside. Vertical farms. These could then help to re-populate the countryside, create thousands of new jobs, generate electricity, plus demand connectivity for telemetry - has that grass half way up got enough water? Also, this would keep DEFRA busy inspecting the number of tyres holding down the silage sheet on level 42 and whether the tags on every sheep and cow's ears on levels 18-30 are legible.

Especially for @cyberdoyle, here is a potential solution to the Final Third problem. Obviously, some thought is required to go into exactly which level her cows go on, and sheep, pigs, goats etc, but it seems that the current thought leader in all this, mainly because they have JFDI (or part of it), is right here in the UK, in Devon at Paignton Zoo

By creating multi-dwelling units in the towns and cities of UK, we could overcome the UK telcos' fears and give them MDUs to connect. Cows obviously need fibre in their daily diet (see photo) and Fibre To The Byre should help justify investment. Also, it would be simple to put 3G, LTE, wimax antennas on the structures, thereby building a wireless cloud over the surrounding area at the same time, and increasing the sadly minimal mobile coverage in rural areas.

There are several added bonuses to the technology neutral approach in that a byproduct of livestock farming, and one of the top causes of global warming/climate change, is of course methane, for which cows are regularly blamed. By a lucky coincidence, it would seem that methane is converted to hydrogen, acetylene and ethylene when subjected to continuous microwave radiation. This could then be stored and used to power the new hydrogen cell cars which we will need once the oil runs out. In addition, every farmer always needs to weld something so the acetylene should come in handy. There is also an increasing global demand for ethylene, so this should create a whole new industry sector within the UK.

This solution really could solve so many problems, surely?!


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