{"id":23572,"date":"2020-08-13T10:41:42","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T09:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=23572"},"modified":"2020-08-14T10:30:04","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T09:30:04","slug":"community-built-5g-mobile-broadband-goes-live-in-chalke-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/08\/community-built-5g-mobile-broadband-goes-live-in-chalke-valley.html","title":{"rendered":"Community Built 5G Mobile Broadband Goes Live in Chalke Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

At present many homes in the Chalke Valley (Wiltshire, England) suffer from slow fixed broadband speeds and extremely weak mobile signals, but a new Government funded community project – Ch4lke Mobile<\/a> – is finally starting to change that by building their own 4G<\/a> and 5G<\/a> based mobile broadband network.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The project, which has taken inspiration from how B4RN<\/a> built their own “full fibre<\/em>” (FTTP<\/a>) broadband ISP network in parts of remote rural England, has been in development for a few years now. But in February 2020 they secured a crucial public investment of \u00a32,359,762 as part of the MONeH Consortium under the Government’s \u00a330m Rural Connected Communities<\/a> (RCC) programme (here<\/a>).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In case you wondered, MONeH stands for Multi Operator Neutral Host<\/strong>, which “aims to demonstrate how multi-operator, neutral host cellular networks based upon small cell technology can be used to provide multiple user slices, serving different customer groups within rural areas with little or no coverage<\/em>.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The project, which also makes use of Ofcom<\/a>’s new local access licences (here<\/a>) – allowing smaller organisations to create their own mobile networks, is working to establish new mobile networks in areas such as the Chalke Valley<\/strong> (Wiltshire), Preston Bissett<\/strong> (Buckinghamshire) and Lucknam Park<\/strong> (near Bath).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

On of the first villages to benefit from this new community-built mobile network is Bowerchalke<\/strong>, which is home to around 400 people. Some in the community can get reasonably good broadband speeds via ADSL2+ or FTTC<\/a>, while others struggle to get much above 1-2Mbps and mobile signals are a big problem. At least they were a problem, because the new Ch4lke Mobile<\/a> network is now starting to make progress.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

James Body, CEO of Telet Research (Ch4lke’s Technical Architect), told ISPreview.co.uk:<\/strong>\r\n

“[The] current benchmark costs for providing mobile coverage to a single house in a not-spot is around \u00a35k per house (Mobile Infrastructure Project *and* Scottish Government<\/a> 4G<\/a> Infill Project). Comparative costs for the current Shared Rural Network (SRN) – assuming that all the planned coverage *is* achieved by end of 2025 – will be around \u00a33,700 per house.<\/p>\r\n

We are aiming to come in at less than \u00a31k per house – with costs falling further with subsequent rollouts.”<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

The plan is to provide a 5G<\/a> non-standalone configuration with a narrow 4G<\/a> waveform, optimised for area coverage, in Band 3 (1800MHz) – aggregated with a localised 5G<\/a> NR (New Radio) waveform in Band n38 (2600MHz) “giving higher speed<\/em>” broadband coverage in areas where there is demand for higher bandwidth.<\/p>\r\n

In order to access this service locals will need to use SIM cards with an International Mobile Subscriber Identity<\/strong> (IMSI) assigned based on a UK Mobile Network Code from Ofcom<\/a>. The roaming element means that you can still get online and make or receive calls\/texts via Three UK<\/a>, Vodadone, O2<\/a> and EE<\/a> (BT<\/a>) when within the area.<\/p>\r\n

Admittedly most communities won’t have access to the same level of technical expertise as those in Bowerchalke do, but the hope is that this model can be refined and then exported for use in other parts of the UK. We should point out that the cells and masts being deployed are supplied with data via a new locally built fibre optic network. A lot of the hardware and software has also come from CellXica in Cambridge.<\/p>\r\n