White Space Broadband Tech Helping to Connect the Ken Dee Valley

A little-known ISP called Fibairo has become one of the precious few UK providers to launch a rural wireless broadband network using White Space (TVWS) technology, which is being used to help connect remote rural homes and businesses in Castle Douglas and other parts of the Ken Dee Valley in Scotland. They also plan some FTTP.

White Space tech has been around for a few years now and it works by harnessing the gaps that exist between radio spectrum in the Digital Terrestrial TV (DTTV) bands, which operate from upwards of 470MHz and this makes them good for delivering wide coverage (up to around 10km).

Normally those spectrum gaps would be intended to help minimise the risk of interference between TV channels, but TVWS gets around this by using a dynamic spectrum management system (database), which means that the gaps can instead be used for delivering data (without disrupting the terrestrial television signal).

A tiny number of operators, such as Broadway Partners (Broadway Broadband), have already built a number of 50Mbps capable wireless broadband networks using this technology, but such deployments remain quite rare. Nevertheless, Fibairo is now working with Microsoft’s Airband Initiative (unrelated to UK ISP Airband) to harness the same TVWS technology for tackling poorly serve areas in the Ken Dee Valley.

The new provider is run by CEO Mark Wheeler, who has a 20-year history in the UK telecoms industry after having worked in senior roles at ISPs including Plusnet, Peerex, Ask4, and Metrona.

Mark Wheeler, CEO of Fibairo, said (Daily Record):

“We developed this product using the challenging terrain of the Ken/Dee valley with the collaboration of the local community, so it’s only right that we offer our pioneering technology first in Dumfries and Galloway and then look at wider expansion.”

At the time of writing Fibairo’s website remains frustratingly sparse on detail, although from digging around social media we found a few vague mentions showing their prices starting from £35 per month and with speeds being offered from 30Mbps to 1Gbps (30-50Mbps is more where you’ll find TVWS, while anything faster is probably for their separate FTTP aspirations).

Interestingly we note that Mark Wheeler helped to start a very similar Sheffield-based ISP called Whitespace Technology back in 2018 (here and here), although the website for that has since vanished and the related company seems to be suffering some problems (here).