Locals Help 60Mbps Wireless Broadband Reach Remote Yorkshire Dales

Some 20 homes in the sparse community of Raydale, which sits inside of the remote Yorkshire Dales National Park (England), have been connected to a new community wireless (WiFi) broadband network that can deliver connection speeds of up to 40-60Mbps.

The ‘Raydale Community Broadband‘ project, which is supported by the local Yoredale Computer Services company and a grant of £5,000 from the National Park’s Sustainable Development Fund (SDF), effectively replaces the area’s existing reliance on a restrictive Satellite based solution.

By contrast the new fixed wireless network is being supplied with capacity from nearby fibre optic cables, which have only recently been installed around some of the region’s larger communities.

Chris Clark, the Yorkshire Dales Champion for Sustainable Development, said (here):

“Part of our shared vision for the National Park is that it should be home to strong, self-reliant and balanced communities with good access to the services they need. Access to good quality broadband is critical to that – and is a real challenge for small, remote communities that have been overlooked in the national roll-out so far.

The working farms and variety of other businesses and families with children at local schools, who are all benefiting from the new broadband system in Raydale, are the lifeblood of our rural communities.”

Grants from the SDF have also been used to support a number of B4RN’s ultrafast rural Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP/H) based broadband deployments, such as in locations like Ireby (£5,000), Chapel-le-Dale (£9,950), Dent and Garsdale (£11,300) and Casterton (£9,950), with Masongill, Barbon and Middleton also being set to benefit in the future.

It’s worth pointing out that the National Park Management Plan includes an objective that aims to provide access to “high quality broadband” (>10Mbps) across the whole National Park by 2019, and further increase access to superfast broadband. By June 2017, around 86% of the National Park should have access to superfast (24Mbps+) speeds via the joint Openreach (BT) and Government backed Broadband Delivery UK programme.

ISPreview.co.uk has also found some additional details for the project in Raydale, which suggests that the total cost of installation will reach £16,444 and the network should be able to handle a maximum of 65 premises, with top download speeds reaching up to 60Mbps.