Wireless ISP to Fill Broadband Notspots in Essex UK by Using Churches

The Diocese of Chelmsford has selected local wireless ISP County Broadband to help fill in some of the Internet slowspots and notspots around Essex (England) by allowing them to build a new 32Mbps (Megabits per second) capable network via local churches.

The new network be designed to focus on areas that will be missed out by the local £25m Superfast Essex project, which aims to rollout BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) platform to around 87% of premises by the end of summer 2016 (the rest will get speeds of at least 2Mbps). This is of course assuming they can correctly identify where those areas will actually be (recent deployment maps have suffered from a lack of detail).

Apparently the Diocoese of Chelmsford includes around 500 church towers across Essex, which would be ideal for County Broadband’s solution. A similar setup has also been successfully used by fixed wireless ISPs in other areas, such as via WiSpire and AllPay Broadband.

Rev Julie Nelson, Rural Officer for the Diocese, said (EADT24):

“The Church is interested in community health and community resilience and today an essential requirement for any community is broadband – it’s the fourth utility. Young families are choosing not to live in areas where broadband service is poor and local businesses are considering moving out – trends that threaten the long-term sustainability of rural communities.

We aren’t knocking what BT are doing but there will be gaps scattered across the county where people still won’t receive a good broadband service – as much as 13% of people could still be in this position. It could be the case that half a village might get a good service and half might not and because we are right on the ground in the community we will know where the gaps are and where we can help.”

County Broadband’s service, which already reaches into more than 60 rural parishes, tends to cost from £99 to install and service rentals start at £10.99 a month for a BASIC community 1Mbps broadband connection (this tops out at 8Mbps for £29.99). But the ISPs latest next generation (NGA) network is significantly faster and can deliver top symmetric speeds of 32Mbps for £34.99 with a 100GB usage allowance (a free 0.5Mbps service is also offered alongside other options).