New Broadband for Rural Kent (B4RK) ISP Preps FTTP Rollout

A new ISP called Broadband for Rural Kent (B4RK), which as the name suggests is modelling itself on B4RN’s community centric build strategy, is in the process of being setup by Tim Higgs and plans to help cater for poorly served villages in the county by deploying a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

Tim began this year as the boss of a tiny Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network, which was used to serve family members and 38 other neighbours in part of rural Kent. The network was originally established after Openreach quoted his community just shy of £230,000 to rollout FTTP in the area, which was understandably deemed to be economically unviable by local residents.

“Although I still intend to expand the wireless coverage to provide a solution, I have since changed my plans and I am [now] looking at running fibre in a way much similar to B4RN, where fibre will run through farmland where possible. I will also look at making use of [Openreach’s existing cable ducts and poles (PIA)] and micro duct in more built-up areas,” said Tim.

The build, which is currently intended to start in the villages of Boughton-under-Blean and Selling, will be part-funded by the community (using a shares offer) and additional investment is hoped to come from the UK Government’s rural gigabit voucher scheme. The plan is to reach 659 properties, most of which are unable to get “superfast” (30Mbps+) speeds today or considerably less.

All of the properties being targeted reside between the M2/A2, A251, A252 and A28, although this is not full coverage of the area and that leaves plenty of room for further expansion, which Tim hopes could eventually take this to over 1,000 premises.

Tim Higgs told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We have the opportunity to build a network, part-funded by the community, for the community. If we do not do this now the opportunity will be lost.

Right now I have self-funded the wireless network build, however with plans for fibre I am now searching for capital investment to make this possible. I’m also looking at the option of shares for anyone that wants to invest in the network to help it be built to them, in a similar way to B4RN’s model. More details about shares will be announced in the near future.

I am also looking for 3 more rural areas in Kent that can start as their own project areas, with the intention that all 4 areas are connected to each other in a couple of years’ time as the coverage expands out. I expect to pick up diverse dark-fibre routes to London (Telehouse) from SSE and Colt that run near to my network area as I expand the network.”

Residents and businesses in rural Kent are now being asked to pledge their rural gigabit vouchers to his project – http://b4rk.co.uk/pledge (a related Facebook page also exists), which will help the ISP to track where the highest demand exists and design their network build around that. Assuming all goes according to plan then Tim optimistically hopes to have the “first few customers connected to my fibre network and delivering 1Gbps to them before Christmas this year.”

Customers can tentatively expect to pay around £30 per month for a 100Mbps (30Mbps upload) package, which rises to £40 for 300Mbps (100Mbps upload) and then £50 for the top 900Mbps (300Mbps upload) tier. Faster business packages with symmetric speeds are also expected at extra cost, which could go as high as 10Gbps using XGSPON technology.

Establishing a new full fibre network is far from an easy or cheap task, but we wish Tim the best of luck and look forward to seeing how this progresses over the next year.