Ed Vaizey MP Praises “fantastic” B4RN 1Gbps Rural Broadband Network

The Government’s Digital Economy Minister, Ed Vaizey, has turned a veiled criticism of Lancashire’s (England) Broadband Delivery UK programme (Superfast Lancashire) into some welcome praise for the alternative and community-built B4RN (Broadband 4 the Rural North) project.

Mr Vaizey was speaking as part of a Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) debate in the House of Commons this afternoon when he made the comment in response to criticism from Cat Smith, the Labour MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood.

Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab):

Many of my rural and farming constituents are looking to diversify, and are setting up their own businesses and working from home. Frustrated with the wait for BT to deliver superfast broadband, many have been left in the position of digging their own trenches and working with [B4RN] to deliver superfast broadband so that they can run their businesses. What message does the Minister have for my constituents who have been left in this situation?

Mr Vaizey replied:

My message to the hon. Lady, as opposed to her constituents, is that people have to make up their mind. One moment I am being berated because BT has a monopoly and now I am being berated because people are choosing a different provider. Broadband 4 the Rural North is a fantastic community broadband programme. We encourage lots of competition for BT and I am pleased that B4RN is thriving and providing an excellent service to her constituents.

The alternative B4RN network and its many off-shoots, which have had to repeatedly fight against BT’s encroachment on to their patch and cope with a difficult local authority (example), has now connected well over 1,600 homes and businesses to their community funded and built ultrafast pure fibre optic broadband network; the next goal is to connect 5,000 premises.

Meanwhile the main Superfast Lancashire (SFL) deployment of “high-speed fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services has preferred to work almost exclusively with BTOpenreach and they’re currently aspiring to achieve 99% coverage by around 2017/18 (here), although the speeds will be significantly slower than those on B4RN’s network.

Mind you somebody should probably update the SFL website as the last news post was made in January 2015 and we’re unsure whether or not the original target (97% coverage by the end of 2015) was ever even achieved (overall total of 675,000 premises passed).