The Cumbria UK Villages Still Fighting for Gigabit Broadband
A year and a half has now passed since the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron (Lib Dem), highlighted the connectivity limbo (here) that several villages in Cumbria – including Ormside, Warcop, Hilton, and Murton – had been left in by the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme. But locals have just been asked to wait a little bit longer.
Just to recap. Some or all of the aforementioned communities were originally in the process of being lined up to receive gigabit broadband (FTTP) via B4RN as part of the Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS). But before that could proceed, BDUK unexpectedly placed the area into the scope of Project Gigabit’s regional supplier contract, which had previously been won by Fibrus the year before, in 2022 (here).
The situation would have been fine if it actually meant those communities being upgraded in a timely fashion, but it’s not quite so simple. The regional supplier contract includes two categories of intervention: Initial Scope, where the regional supplier should build as quickly as possible; and Deferred Scope, where BDUK wait and see whether commercial plans or voucher projects translate to delivery, but could then build if not.
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Sadly, the aforementioned communities are all stuck in a Deferred Scope, which means they’re still waiting to hear whether or not Fibrus will be able to reach them. “For premises that are included in the Deferred Scope of contract, we will seek a price from the regional supplier, but will not authorise build unless and until they are re-classified as White. We will always either descope Under Review premises or defer build to them and we will always descope Grey or Black premises,” states BDUK’s policy documents.
Back in June 2023 the then Chancellor of the UK government, Jeremy Hunt, promised to “happily look into what has happened … We strongly support all rural areas having access to gigabyte broadband, as an important part of our policy. We have made a lot of progress on that. I will look into detail of what is happening in the hon. Gentleman’s area and get back to him.” But little has changed, which on Monday prompted another intervention by Tim Farron.
Tim Farron told parliament (here):
“Perhaps of greater concern are the places that are in scope, but in deferred scope. I want to name four parishes in my constituency, near Appleby: Hilton, Murton, Warcop and Ormside. Those are communities on very low speeds at the moment. Some people are forced, against their better judgment and almost against their will, to give money to Elon Musk to use Starlink instead of the very limited broadband opportunities that are available to them.
While those communities are within scope but in deferred scope, they wait for the contract holder, Fibrus, to give them a date, and because they are within deferred scope, nothing is happening on the ground to connect them. Also, they do not have access to the voucher scheme, which would allow them to work with our absolutely brilliant Cumbrian Broadband for the Rural North, otherwise known as B4RN, an award-winning community interest company that has connected so many homes throughout rural Cumbria to gigabit and greater broadband speeds.
So I want to press the Minister—this is my one ask of him—on whether he will ensure that those parishes I have listed, Ormside, Warcop, Hilton and Murton, are either given a date for connection under Project Gigabit, or are descoped so that vouchers can be made available and B4RN can then step in and fill the gap. We had a public meeting in the snow in Murton last December—next weekend it will be 12 months ago—where BDUK made all sorts of promises of which it has fulfilled absolutely none.
Will the Minister give personal attention to either descoping those communities so they can get broadband through the B4RN and the voucher system, or give Fibrus—and more importantly BDUK—a kick up the backside to make sure they bring the communities into scope, and give a date in the next few months so that those communities, which are very remote in many other ways, are connected properly to gigabit broadband speed?”
In response, the government’s new Telecoms Minister, Chris Bryant, told Tim, “I do not want to descope at this point, because I very much hope that we will get to a resolution in the next month, but he makes a strong point. If it proves necessary to abandon ship, as it were, he can come back at me on that.”
The response appears to indicate that some or all of the aforementioned villages might soon be included into Fibrus’ main deployment, but we won’t find out until around the turn of the year. Even if the deployment does end up being confirmed, then it remains unclear how long locals may have to wait before the new service actually arrives.
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We should point out that there are plenty of other communities across the UK that have found themselves being placed into a similar position over the past couple of years.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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It seems a bit unfair to point out that streets of large cities have no prospect of fibre at all at this point, including in London. Or is that really unfair to say…
I’d love to know the economics of rolling it out in these areas.
The local build can’t be that much different to other areas so it must be the build between these villages and the nearest backhaul.
Grain are installing in my town as third provider after VM (Nexfibre) and openreach. The area they are covering therefore has significant competition and it is not an affluent area, so many may prefer discounted or social tariffs.
Why would grain prefer this area rather than an area with zero competition? They could price at double their normal (low) price and still generate revenue.
They’re also a Cumbrian based company I think so there’s a local connection there.
Don’t know about the rest but have a look at Ormside. It’s not going to be a similar cost to roll out to even ignoring backhaul as Grain’s usual build. Not remotely close. They build mostly in streets of terraces, two up, two down. Ormside seems mostly holiday park and large detached units. The holiday park can’t viewed as regular premises to pass.
Some villages are among the cheaper areas in the country to build to ignoring cost of getting to them in the first place but most of these are already scheduled for commercial build. The FTTC programme also unlocked a bunch to Openreach and using remote headends they’re able to serve them. Ormside is neither. Backhaul really expensive, build once reached really expensive. Even if backhaul were easy it would be unlikely to see commercial coverage.
No idea about the others.
I’d like some competition – only Virgin Mediocre in DH8.
I live in Inner London. 10 minutes from Westminster. No ultrafast broadband here and we are stuck with a miserable 30 Mbps service until at least 2026.
Exactly. Certain issues are being completely overlooked in high population areas where many people are impacted.
Correct. What is the combined population of these villages? Not much, I reckon. It’s just jumped up MPs on behalf of farmers, probably. They’re all sheep, ha ha.
Cumbrians would probably swap London levels of infrastructure and public transport investment for FTTP.
Londoners would swap London infrastructure for any other that actually works. In Hong Kong everything works on time. The overground ever since the woke rebrand is broken more than half the time
And how far do you have to go to get decent access by public facility of mobile, a couple of hundred yards, vs those out in the sticks?
Its about time there was transparent honesty of BDUK, based on geogrphich coverage, and tiemscales + progress on the end point for those not in the low hanging ‘quick’ cheap proffitable population coverage, you know the non discriminatory digital Inclusion view?
BDUK’s decision-making processes need to be investigated.
Who by? OFTEL is just another weak Quango.
You are optimistically suggesting that they are capable of making a decision. This report suggests that their position is “we can’t make our mind up so we’ll not do anything”.
Agreed
I know I’ve pointed this out before, but go to the Thinkbroadband map and turn on both Fibrus and B4RN FTTP coverage (or Openreach and B4RN for that matter) and then look at the spread of coverage.
Fibrus have connected a lot more premises in Cumbria than B4RN have, but compare the distribution. Fibrus (and most of the regional contract winners) have tended to concentrate mostly on the large towns and villages. As a commercial company, this is understandable as they are in business to make money for their shareholders. So why wouldn’t you pick the low hanging fruit first ? It’s certainly not against the terms of regional procurement contracts.
On the other hand, the government has previously paid lip service to building ‘outside-in’ and to some extent, that is what’s happening. It’s when you look at the detail it tends to fall apart. It’s outside-in if you look at the county scale. Not some much if you look at the smaller more rural, more remote, communities within it.
B4RN and other similar organisations, build according to actual demand. It takes a lot of community effort to run and follow through a B4RN project and you would only do it if the need was there.
The result is a rural coverage that looks like B4RN’s. Actual outside-in.
Fibrus (and the other regional contract winners) may eventually end up with a similar coverage pattern but in the meantime, communities that actually need decent broadband will have a frustrating and seemingly open-ended wait for something they could have sorted out themselves, given the chance, and without costing the taxpayer any more money.
Fibrus have built a lot in the past two years since winning the regional contract which is great news for the people who have benefited. However, it’s the larger population centres that have largely been targeted. With some of those, it’s difficult to understand why they couldn’t have been reached without any subsidy. Many had reasonable broadband anyway.
It would be interesting to have Fibrus’ perspective on this. When will their build reach those smaller communities and I don’t mean the odd one to go in a press release but in depth ? When will the last communities be connected given we are only a year away from the third anniversary of contract signing ?
The regional procurements essentially covered premises that were not being built to within 3 years.It’s starting to look like many will still be without for far longer than that.
Outside in is absolutely insane build policy from a economic perspective and even the government understands that
Well, yes, and that’s my point.
People have already worked out how to get themselves fibre broadband without the ruinous costs.
B4RN and other AltNets have proved alternative strategies, other than pure commercial, do work in this environment.
So why lump every single white property into one huge county-wide contract lasting years.
It is not surprising that a commercial builder will reach the most profitable properties first but this doesn’t necessarily correspond with those most in need, people that B4RN and others have worked out how to reach without going bankrupt in the process.
Weird tone on the article as if “giving” (ie paying for an actual service) is a bad thing. Starlink is great
It’s also £75 a month for c. 100/15 Mb with £299 equipment charge and congestion charge on top. Fibrus is currently £20 a month for 150/30 Mb and £35 for gigabit with zero set up fee.
Gigaclear is expensive, so is BT especially after they jack up prices by 15%. Those are the services to compare in remote areas
Another benefit from Starlink is that it can be mobile too
So I am lucky enough to have two homes, one in south east england, the other in the far north west of scotland. I have two different internet experiences. In the south east, fibre has finally been installed, but getting connected 30 metres from my house to the fibre is proving difficult. Meanwhile my Aluminium phone line buried in the earth is crumbling away. I have to pay a £1200 contribution to get connected, without any guarantees or share in ownership, and Openreach admin is simply incompetent. I live in a suburb of a large town.
Up north, our home is in a community of about 40 others, spread a couple of miles along the main A road. Scotgov installed fibre along the main road a few years back but only built points of presence at the big villages so, while the fibres goes past us, we cant connect at all. So we set up a wireless network as a wider community project, which supplies small communities up to 50 miles away. It does break every now and again in the extreme weather we get, but it does deliver and it only costs £30 a month and I get 50 to 70 mbps. And yes, I helped set it up, helped to fund it and remain involved as an unpaid company secretary. The only realistic alternative now is Starlink, ironically no longer available to me down south as it is now “sold out”!
So 1 I am a great fan of communities doing their own broadband, but it is very hard to do and 2 government hardly gets the detail of not spots and cocks it up all the time.