First Homes Live on B4RN’s 1Gbps FTTH Network in Cheshire UK
The B4RN Cheshire project, which is a region specific off-shoot of rural focused full fibre UK ISP B4RN, has confirmed that their “first customers [have started] to go live just in time for Christmas.” As usual the network build has been both partly funded and supported by local volunteers.
The local project, which exists outside of B4RN’s traditional network in the North of England, extends to a geographical area of around 12 square miles and incorporates the villages of Puddington, Burton, Capenhurst, Shotwick, Ness, Two Mills, Wood Bank and Ledsham (well over 1,000 premises). Receiving broadband speeds of better than 10Mbps can still be a major challenge for many of these communities.
Work on the Cheshire build started in the spring of this year with the installation of the project’s main cabinet in Capenhurst. Soon after that the team – a mix of professional contractors and local volunteers – began digging the duct for Route 1 (pictured below – Capenhurst to Shotwick).
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Fast forward several months and the first homes have now started to go live in Capenhurst, with Shotwick due to be live in January. Customers will pay just £30 per month for a 1000Mbps (symmetrical) unlimited service and there’s also a one-off connection fee of £150 with a 1 month rolling contract.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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hi Gig, I don’t think B4RN let you do that but you can check with them. info@b4RN.org.uk If the landowner is happy then it is actually easier to dig the fibre in and then you don’t have a wireless link to maintain. Where I live we had a wifi mesh, and we were all very happy to replace every link with fibre and have had no problems since. It is tons better with a fibre. We jumped from 30mbps to 1000mbps, no problems with electric cuts, trees, storms etc. now. And the price was still the same.