Broadband has arrived!
You wait for ages for broadband and then two arrive at once!
Invisible Networks have at last (see the Crier from February onwards for the
unfolding story) provided broadband to a number of customers in the village. In
the meantime several of us, noticing that Reach had just got a working
broadband service from Drakken, had decided to investigate joining with them
instead.
This began with a meeting in the Red Lion and was followed up within the week by Robert Hollingsworth having an initial connection to a transmitter in Reach up and running. Shortly after this, one damp Monday evening, Gregg Cotner, Dave Summers from Reach, and I wandered round the village with an aerial strapped to the top of Dave's 25 foot fishing pole to see where else we could receive the Reach signal. We could from each of the five houses we tried and four of us signed up there and then to what had just become Reach and Swaffham Prior Community Broadband.
Unlike the Invisible Networks system, this is a true community project. All the work of setting up connections is done by members of the community - mainly Dave Summers so far, and without whose magnificent help none of this would have been possible, but we're gradually learning how to do it ourselves with Robert acting as the coordinator for Swaffham Prior. The DIY approach is proving to be interesting and fun! Invisible Networks, by contrast, do all the work to install a working connection but the price includes their labour costs and, of course as it is a commercial system, their profit margin.
So far, take-up of the two systems has largely split geographically. Invisible Networks bring their signal in from Swaffham Bulbeck and have mainly installed nodes towards the top of the hill and to the South-West. Trees blocking the line of sight between houses has meant that they have had install more than the three retransmitter nodes which they had expected to need. The community project nodes are mainly in areas of the village where there is a line of sight to Reach so that that signal can be used directly, or close to Robert Hollingsworth's where there is so far the project's single retransmitter in the village.
The form below can be used to order broadband from the community project. For the Invisible Networks system, there is on-line ordering at their Web site http://www.carnet.uk.net/.
There is an article on Reach's system in the Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine (http://www.bbwexchange.com/news/2003/jul/drakken071503.asp).