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B4RN Founder Says Fibre Optic is the Only Broadband Worth UK Investment

Monday, Sep 17th, 2012 (1:05 am) - Score 5,738

Q2. Phase 1 of the project is predicted to cost around £1.86 million and you’ve already raised enough (close to £400,000) to cover the ‘core network’ build, which is expected to pass over 400 premises before later touching close to 1,500 through further investment (note: the network plan has since expanded outside the parishes a bit and thus this figure could end up being closer to 2,000).

Can you tell us a little about how your funding model works (e.g. how you raised the money etc.) and what your expectations are for covering the entire cost of phase 1?

ANSWER:

Initially we went to the community and the parish councils and explained what we wanted to do. We managed to obtain a grant from the Forest Of Bowland AONB (Area of Natural Beauty) to enable us to set up a web site and produce marketing material. Residents in the coverage area were asked to register if they were interested and when we had achieved a 50% level of interest we decided it was time to start the company. B4RN was registered as a Community Benefit Company with the FSA. We then raised the money by once again going to the community, explaining what we wanted to do, and doing a share launch on December 14th 2011.

We registered with the EIS scheme which gives each taxpaying shareholder 30% of their money back as a tax refund. (over a £500 share that is). We also added another bonus deal for the early adopters of a free connection (worth £150) and the first year’s service free if they subscribed to £1500 shares (foundation member). Shares have to be held for a minimum of three years to qualify and after that they can only be sold back to the company at their face value. Interest on the shares will be paid after year three if people want to leave their investment in the company at a reasonable rate of interest (5%). We are also running ‘sponsor a metre’ whereby people can have their name put on ducting by donating a fiver a metre. We have had support from all over the world, and every little helps.

We worked on the principle that we would only spend the money when we had received enough to build the core routes between the main villages. All additional funding will enable more routes from the core to be built. We will do those in order of popularity, i.e. the more registrants on a route the higher up the list it goes. In an effort to manage cash flow at the start of the project our model enables/encourages landowners to dig in their own duct in exchange for shares in the company at a rate set by B4RN. All the management team are volunteers and don’t get paid. This is very much a community project for the community by the community and we are building it for ourselves.

The strength of the project is that we have got a fully mapped out and costed design which has taken our network designer over three years to refine. The technical side is second to none and a good man with a digger can dig a trench and lay the fibre ducts. It isn’t rocket science and not as difficult as laying a land drain, so most farmers are over qualified for this work, some simple instructions and they can do it.

NOTE (Clarification from B4RN on the above): Shares can only be sold back to the company after three years and they will only be ‘bought’ as and when the company has the funds to do so on a first come basis. Interest will be paid after year three and it is currently suggested that the rate will be 5% per annum but this is subject to confirmation.

Q3. B4RN claims that its network will be able to provide “fibre to every home providing [a] 1000 megabit (1 gigabit) future proof connection for £30 a month“. But to be economically viable even the fastest connections must often share their capacity. What kind of real-world speeds can customers actually expect to receive (i.e. once the network is complete and homes connected)?

ANSWER:

Every customer on the network will have more speed than they can use or measure with today’s computers. A computer downloading a film in 32 seconds can only download so many before it has run out of storage. People have a limit to how much they can actually use at one time. What it boils down to is that 1000 megabit is available to the customers all of the time.

Contention rates only really matter if you are talking about using a phone line and exchanges, once you get on fibre nobody would even notice if anyone else was using it. Its an abundance model rather than a scarcity one. It’s like saying if someone took a bucket of water out of the sea would the waves be smaller. If ever contention did become an issue the lights on the fibre could be upgraded to terabit capacity if needed. What we are building is future proof, and will always supply the customer with more than they need. We could have advertised a 2, 10, or 100 megabit product, but we thought it is actually cheaper to go for a gigabit as those lights work out as worth the money, whereas any other equipment for lower bandwidth or throttling what is there works out more expensive.

Q4. What happens if the fibre optic cable gets cut, do you have any redundancy in the network for a temporary solution and how do you figure out where the damage has occurred?

ANSWER:

Yes, the core network is a resilient ring with 10 Gigabit feeds at both ends. If the core was damaged then traffic would be routed via the failover path. Standard network operating procedures apply, which includes suitably experienced people able to respond to network outages in a timely manner. Industry standard equipment will be used to help monitor and locate breaks and help speedy repair.

Q5. The business plan anticipates a take-up rate of 50% in the first year, which would give you a customer base of 700+ properties by around Q2-2013. How many premises have already committed to the service and do you expect to meet this target?

ANSWER:

In some areas of B4RN the committed take up is over 80%. The lowest is 38%, the average seems to be 50%. We anticipate more than that once the fibre goes past people’s properties and they see it actually happening. We have already experienced that in the areas we are currently digging through. Registrations from the notspots [ISPr ED: Areas with no broadband at all] come in faster than slowspots [ISPr ED: Usually areas with sub-2Mbps broadband connectivity].

Q6. Back in June 2012 the UK government’s Secretary of State for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Jeremy Hunt MP, said that he “supported” B4RN’s project and would even visit it in the future (here). How much of a surprise was that comment and has he set a date yet?

ANSWER:

It wasn’t a surprise, MPs often say things like that. No date has been set, and no further comments received from mr Hunt.

ISPr NOTE: Jeremy Hunt MP was officially replaced by Maria Miller MP as part of a cabinet reshuffle on 4th September 2012 (details).

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 and .
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