Gigabeam Connect Remote Village to Fast Broadband After BT Delay

Residents in the rural village of Ashmansworth (Hampshire, England) have finally been connected to a superfast broadband network after the community and local authority stepped in to help fund UK ISP Gigabeam to build an alternative wireless network, which followed a delay to Openreach’s (BT) deployment.

Locals in the village, which has a population of just over 200 (roughly 50 premises), claim that Openreach originally promised to bring superfast broadband to their area but then allegedly changed their mind. This often occurs when an engineering survey discovers that the cost of deployment would fall significantly above earlier estimates, while the state aid provided via the Hampshire Superfast Broadband project might not have stretched far enough.

Instead Newbury Today reports that locals were able to raise £20,000 from their own pockets, which was then matched by £14,000 via the ‘Communication Improvements and Technology Infrastructure Fund’ from Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council. On top of that they were further supported by grants of up to £350 per property via the Better Broadband Subsidy Scheme.

All of this funding was then used to help Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) ISP Gigabeam to build a new broadband network in the village, which receives its signal from another mast in Winchester. Residents in the nearby village of Crux Easton have also benefited. But awkwardly Openreach has since sprung back into life.

Alan Cox, Chairman of Ashmansworth Parish Council, said:

“Since Gigabeam started, BT have installed a cabinet, although I don’t know if it is wired up.

There are only about two houses which did not go to Gigabeam and stayed with BT, so there are only two potential customers for BT at the moment.

Everyone has signed a two-year contract with Gigabeam, so in about 18 months we will find out what will happen.

I’m quite annoyed with BT for installing a cabinet in our village.”

Openreach claims that their new FTTC (VDSL2) cabinet on Cross Lane was delayed from late 2017 due to “civil engineering challenges” and that it will now go live at the end of June 2018, albeit after residents have invested a significant sum in order to build their own alternative network.

The FTTC service can in theory deliver peak download speeds of up to 80Mbps and it’s close enough to stand a good chance of delivering near to that level of performance. By comparison the new service from Gigabeam offers top speeds of up to around 30-70Mbps, albeit with usage capped packages.

Locals may thus be annoyed but at least now they have two choices of superfast broadband infrastructure instead of one.