An isolated rural village in the Snowdonia (Wales, UK) foothills, Rhiwlas (near Bangor), has finally managed to leave its ancient dialup internet connections behind with the launch of a new 'up to' 30Mbps capable wireless broadband service.

The project was developed through a local community group and constructed with FibreSpeed, which operates a "state-of-the-art optical fibre network" that can deliver superfast broadband to various parts of Northern Wales, and one of its partner ISPs - Netserve Consultants.

Some 70 or more households in the village are now able to use broadband for the first time. It's understood that Netserve and Opal IT Services (not TalkTalk) were able to create a wireless link from the FibreSpeed network at Parc Menai to new antenna equipment installed in Rhiwlas.


At present most of the residents are using the basic 2Mbps package for £20 a month, although the service can handle 100+ users with speeds of up to 4Mbps and future upgrades will extend this to 10Mbps. The hardware itself can even cope with 30Mbps+. The project was mostly funded by money from the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and its broadband support scheme.