The ‘ingenuity’ of community broadband schemes has been praised by the Financial Times.

The article explains that many regions around Britain are ‘too sparsely populated to justify the cost that BT and Virgin Media would need to spend to upgrade the telecoms networks’.

Consequently, to counter the ‘digital divide’ many communities are ‘taking matters into their own hands’ and implementing ‘ingenious, and crucially, affordable solutions’. One of the most successful schemes, Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN) in Lancashire, has seen residents dig their own trenches for new fibre optic cables rather than wait years for the telecoms companies to invest in full fibre connections for their areas.

Telecompaper also reports this week that B4RN has exceeded its £3 million fundraising target.

Full article:

→ Financial Times - Ingenuity helps bridge UK’s rural broadband divide

→ Telecompaper - B4RN raises over GBP 3 million to expand rural broadband network