Cumbria’s DIY broadband community

January 26th, 2011

MP for Penrith and The Border Rory Stewart, tells an important story of [1] what the ‘Big Society’ really means, [2] why in many way what we face is a design problem [3] that community is still situated and can be a powerful force for transformation. He does this in How Cumbria’s village halls are pioneering a hi-tech revolution (An internet revolution driven by tiny rural communities is giving the telecoms giants a run for their money)

The area that Rory represents is vast, communities can be small, as he says the problems are distance and isolation. This means broadband companies are reluctant to lay the cable to deliver broadband – not cost efficient. But as we know connectivity makes commerce possible. And without connectivity, communities dwindle even further for social as well as commercial reasons.

Broadband would allow our businesses to follow our local fishing supply shop, which does £1m of sales a year out of the door but £7m online. Farmers could fill forms online; Lake District B&Bs could market themselves in Japan; and “creative” industries that depend on fast internet speeds could grow. Parkinson’s patients could talk to their neurologist by videolink without leaving home (and grandparents could talk to their grandchildren in Canada); children could take classes which they couldn’t find in the district. Village shops could collaborate online to increase their purchasing power; village halls could share bookings; medical teams could exchange emergency calls more efficiently. People might decide again to work and bring their families up in villages.

£100m has been invested in broadband in Cornwall, but Cumbria is twice as big, with geographic challenges. This where the design challenge comes in – an intractable dilemma. Commercial companies say ‘non’, based upon their criteria, which has real social and commercial consequences. So what happened next?

But our Eden communities may have the solution. In Great Asby, one volunteer discovered there was already fibre, paid for by the taxpayer, for the school. The school let him splice off the fibre to a cabinet that he calls a “parish pump”. From that he ran a wireless network, with transmitters in the church tower and one, powered by solar panels, on a dead tree to reach the outlying farms. He has persuaded 70% of the village to sign up and is making enough money (as an unpaid volunteer) to upgrade the network. Local farmers have agreed to lay the fibre, at a fraction of the commercial cost. This is not a just impressive technology, it’s astonishing community action. And it suggests a model for rural Britain. The 130 activists who drove to Great Asby are now aiming to replicate it in 100 more villages. They have established a new website – though some of them have to drive to Penrith to log on. Libby, in Kirkby Stephen, is photographing and mapping all existing telecoms cabinets. Freddy, in Morland, is exploring alternative technologies from microwave transmitters and wireless hubs, to laying fibre in sewers. Five out of six farmers around Crosby Ravensworth have offered to forego wayleave charges and help dig trenches. Kate, in Stanwix, is training people to get online. Daniel, in Alston, is piloting medical tests from homes.

This is what happens when communities are empowered, when they are driven to create something for themselves. Traditional orthodoxies don’t need to apply. And of course the economics of community run networks is different, because communities can sign up well over 70% of a village to use broadband, they are much more attractive economic propositions. But if companies don’t invest, communities will bypass them entirely and build, own and run their own networks. The market orthodoxy wants us to behave in a certain – for their benefit. The Eden community demonstrates that designing a different solution, means they can change the rules and deliver a service that probably is more sustainable.

Bookmarks: