Norfolk Village of Denver Gets Better Broadband Thanks to Church

Engineers from UK ISP Intouch Systems (aka – ITSwisp and WiSpire) have, after two years of preparation and waiting, made use of an agreement with the Church of England to deploy new antenna equipment that will boost a wireless broadband signal across the Norfolk village of Denver.

At present a good portion of Denver is already reached by “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) speeds as a result of Openreach’s (BT) local Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) network, although that deployment doesn’t appear to cover everybody around the community.

As a result Intouch Systems has now installed a new mast for Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) broadband on top of the local and centrally positioned church (St Mary’s of Denver). St Mary’s has thus become the first church in the Diocese of Ely to make use of such a facility.

Local homes covered by the new network can now access “unlimited” (subject to a 2TB fair usage policy) download speeds of up to 30Mbps (uploads of 2.5Mbps) for £34.99 per month (plus £99 installation), although slower and cheaper packages are also available.

David Newman, Member of the Congregation, said (Lynn News):

“The community of Denver will benefit from this facility, as the broadband signal is intermittent, good, poor, or just not available. However there are residents of Denver who do not suffer any problems.

Hopefully having WiFi available within the church will encourage young people into our church with their laptops and tablets etc, perhaps even to assist them when the need for a good signal helps them with homework, which may not be available at home.”

By the sounds of it Intouch Systems have been waiting a long time for this approval to be given by the Church of England. We can’t help but wonder whether the recent movement was influenced by the Church’s new agreement with O2 and Vodafone (here), although the timing could just be a coincidence.