The Farmer Who Built Her Own Broadband (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a BBC article: "I'm just a farmer's wife," says Christine Conder, modestly. But for 2,300 members of the rural communities of Lancashire she is also a revolutionary internet pioneer. Her DIY solution to a neighbour's internet connectivity problems in 2009 has evolved into B4RN, an internet service provider offering fast one gigabit per second broadband speeds to the parishes which nestle in the picturesque Lune Valley. That is 35 times faster than the 28.9 Mbps average UK speed internet connection according to Ofcom. It all began when the trees which separated Chris's neighbouring farm from its nearest wireless mast -- their only connection to the internet, provided by Lancaster University -- grew too tall. Something more robust was required, and no alternatives were available in the area, so Chris decided to take matters into her own hands. She purchased a kilometre of fibre-optic cable and commandeered her farm tractor to dig a trench. After lighting the cable, the two farms were connected, with hers feeding the one behind the trees. "We dug it ourselves and we lit [the cable] ourselves and we proved that ordinary people could do it," she says. "It wasn't rocket science. It was three days of hard work."

Comments

Re:It does take a PhD though...

[blindseer]

Would a few lines from "Firefly" be out of order?

Dr. Simon Tam: River, b- uh, be careful with that, that's, um... What is that?
Kaylee Frye: That's a post holer. You dig holes. For posts.
Dr. Simon Tam: It's, uh, it's dirty and sharp.

Many people are just afraid of things that are dirty and sharp so they leave that to other people. Turns out if the other people are uninterested, either because they are also afraid of things that are dirty and sharp, or they see no profit in it, then things don't get done. Civilization was built by those that wanted to make their lives better and weren't afraid to do the work themselves. A lot of times that means working with tools that are dirty and sharp.

Re:Where's a telco when you need one?

[buss_error]

Reminds me of a joke about farmers:
What's the fastest way to become a agribusiness millionaire?
Start as an agribusiness billionaire.

Internet isn't the only choke hold business has on Americans. Some seed providers (who shall remain un-named by me, as I'm no fool and I don't want any more torts from that company) sues it's own customers, and even farmers that never used their seed. If a single seed blows over from another field and sprouts in your field, this company can (and does) sue the farmer down to his toenail lint. Then turns around and transfers the property to it's own farming conglomerate. Doesn't matter if they win, because in the long run that farmer they sued will likely end up bankrupt from the tort.

Same thing is going on with chicken and hogs. You can't raise your own stock anymore, you have to buy it from the packers, buy the feed they demand from distributors they specify, then once mature, sell it to only the packer that you bought the livestock from, all at prices the conglomerate sets.

If a farmer or rancher doesn't want to work that way, they are left with finding their own stock in a market that is all but dried up, and hope to sell on the spot export market because they won't be able to sell to national chains in the US.

Now, let's turn to our President Elect - will he do something about these inequalities? Doubtful. While he doesn't engage in agribusiness himself, I seriously doubt a serial bankrupter and contract violator will welcome any sort of increased oversight or reform.

I'd like to be wrong on that though.

Re:And if you tried this in America

[darkain]

Very much this! I've personally looked into doing this in my neighborhood. For what ever reason, getting "business" gigabit internet where I live is in the range of $3000-10000/mo. But for what ever reason, the EXACT same company can provide "residential" gigabit internet for only $79/mo. It is literally the same wires going to the same data center in town. The only difference is the terms of service.

Re:Free enterprise used to be legal in 1910

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the most tragic truths in American history. Anything moderately left-leaning instantly became the devil in American society. The result is Big Business controlled policy and economy that is directly and indirectly responsible for the losses of millions of lives that continues to this day.

Re:Where's a telco when you need one?

[Solandri]

Have you actually read the Canadian Supreme Court decision against Schmeiser? It's a complete repudiation of all of Monsanto's claims except for their claim of patent ownership of the seed. And that claim was later disproven.

• The lower court judgement against Schmeiser was reduced to just $1. Why? Because (and the Monsanto apologists never tell you this) Schmeiser never used Round-Up on his crops. He only used Round-Up to kill weeds in the gulleys between his crops and the road. Never on his crops. As such, there was no way for him to benefit from using Monsanto's patented gene (and in fact no incentive for him to steal it).
• He "acquired" the seed when he noticed that some stray canola which was growing in the gulleys survived his anti-weed spraying of Round-Up. Since his canola crop was not Round-Up-Ready, the only way the Round-Up-resistant canola could've gotten there is by falling off a passing truck (the explanation the Court decided was correct), or via natural cross-pollination of his crop with a neighbor's Round-Up-Ready crop (the explanation Schmeiser gave for his behavior).
• The Court decided for Monsanto (5 to 4) because Monsanto claimed it was impossible for the gene to spread by natural cross-pollination as Schmeiser claimed. The Court took Monsanto at their word and decided in their favor because Schmeiser "ought to have known" that any canola which survived spraying with Round-Up was Monsanto's patented seed, not the result of natural cross-pollination.
• Monsanto's argument was disproven a decade later when researchers found the Round-Up-Ready gene could spread to weeds via cross-pollination. Basically, Schmeiser was right and Monsanto was wrong. The gene could spread through cross-pollination, meaning the Round-Up resistant canola he found next to his fields may very well have been the result of natural cross-pollination, and not Monsanto's patented seed. And the only reason the Canadian Supreme Court decided in Monsanto's favor was erroneous.

Re:And if you tried this in America

[Bengie]

Close but not quite. Residential customers get a discount because residential users as a group have a different bandwidth profile. It's not even just this simple. ISPs costs are typically based on peak usage, which is driven by residential customers. Bandwidth used outside of normal residential peak hours is virtually free. Around here, businesses actually pay the same residential users for the same service.

Key words there, "same service". My ISP makes no real distinction between business and residential. Both can get static IP blocks for cheap, uncapped dedicated bandwidth, individual strands of fiber back to the CO. If you want an SLA, prepare to pay through the nose.

Re: And if you tried this in America

[Archangel Michael]

You're thinking is is almost right. The infrastructure is where the problem actually lies. What is needed is a way to avoid the last mile issue being the monopoly /oligarchy model that we've been running for the last 30+ years or so. Stop viewing the last mile as a "Franchise agreement" and start treating it like a road, where anyone can deliver the packages (FedEx, UPS, USPS ...).

My solution is municipal owned Fiber Plant, brought back to a COLO facility where you have the choice of providers to bring content/services to the end user, and let the competition happen there.