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last updated
17/04/05
NORTH STAINLEY |
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The campaign to bring Broadband internet access to North Stainley was formally launched at the end of January 2004 with the support of North Stainley with Sleningford Parish Council, local MP, the Rt Hon David Curry, Harrogate Borough Council and the Ripon Gazette, who published an article on the campaign progress in April 2004.
At the time of the initial campaign launch, there were about 30 pre-registrations of interest in using Broadband. Through the efforts of the campaign this number increased significantly to about 70.
North Stainley exchange, (which also serves the neighbouring village of Mickley), has approximately 250 lines originating from it. Because it has less than 300 lines, it was one of only about 600 exchanges throughout the country that did not have a trigger level for Broadband enablement set by BT at that time. Shortly thereafter, BT ceased the practice of taking registrations of interest in broadband in advance of exchange enablement. Consequently, there was little hope of the exchange being Broadband enabled within the forseeable future.
The focus of the campaign therefore switched to obtaining a Broadband service through other delivery channels, the primary option being the provision of a Community Broadband via Satellite system.
Following a Village Meeting on Monday 20th September 2004, it was established that there was a sufficient level of demand within the village for such a service. Thereafter, we obtained grant funding from the Regional Development Agency Yorkshire Forward and have now established a 2Mbps Broadband via Satellite system through GO Broadband Ltd.
A 'Broadband Users Group' has been set up within the village, it's purpose being to share information and encourage the use of the internet throughout the community now that we have access to high speed connectivity. An on-line forum for the North Stainley Broadband User Group has been set up using the Yahoo! Groups facility.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS; Extract from Parish News, May 2005
Some of you may be aware of the fact that Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency and provider of funding for our satellite broadband project, have recently taken the decision to enable the 22 telephone exchanges throughout the region that were previously deemed by BT as being uneconomic to upgrade. This includes North Stainley. Yorkshire Forward intend to introduce cable to all these exchanges by November of this year. The upshot of this is that existing community broadband networks will have the opportunity to switch from satellite backhaul to cabled alternatives. This should result in a decrease in the monthly subscription amount.
The nature of wireless mesh networks makes it easy to “plug-in” additional bandwidth. However, retiring the existing satellite backhaul and replacing it with an alternative is technically more complex, especially when the need to achieve a managed transition with no disruption to users is taken into account.
Whilst this all sounds good in principle, the reality is a little
more complex, the main problem being that it is currently too early to say
exactly which solution is best for North Stainley as we have yet to find out
the details of what functionality the wired alternative will offer.
Our existing network has a 2 Mbps down / 512 kbps up backhaul with the option
to “turn up the tap” to a full 3 Mbps down / 512kbps up or 1 Mbps
symmetric. The maximum bandwidth currently available via ADSL (BT Wholesale)
is 2 Mbps down / 256 kbps up. A wired exchange should be capable of far more
than this. Existing community networks also have their own security arrangements,
namely firewalls, anti-virus, support for encryption and virtual private networks.
These are typically part of the backhaul package. Alternative backhaul provision
needs to provide the same level of security if the network is not to be compromised.
Business clients in particular need to be confident that their data will be
secure and their VPN connections will work reliably over the new backhaul.
Where community networks provide broadband to schools, Internet content filtering
is also required. The process of cutting-over from existing backhaul to the
new is potentially high-risk for a community network, since everyone’s
broadband connection and e-mail depend upon it working flawlessly.
One of the advantages of landline is that it does support peer-to-peer file sharing. If we augment the wireless network with a landline connection, we will be able to route peer-to-peer traffic over it and remove this restriction, which is one of the few limitations imposed by having a satellite connection.
At present, we think that the best scenario would be to connect
fibre into the existing wireless network to enhance the service, in which
case, there would be no additional costs as individual household installations
would remain the same. Were it currently available, the equivalent BT landline
broadband service to North Stainley would be £28.49 per month, though
unlike North Stainley Net, there are monthly limits to the amount of data
you can download. In general, it is hoped that we will be able to purchase
and share via the wireless network a far faster landline than individuals
would be able to afford. A fibre connection to the Internet coupled with wireless
for the last mile appears to be the best of both worlds.
Rest assured that, we shall keep all options under review and continue our
work with GO Broadband to deliver the best and most cost effective option
for all parties.
