We are now live on B4RN 1Gb/s Internet - an amazing local community achievement!

The B4MS Community Broadband Project now brings B4RN FTTP (fibre to the premises) connectivity to The Hyning Estate with gigabit symmetrical speeds (1000Mbps UP & DOWN).

The Engineers spliced the final section of the Fibre Optic cable and installed our router today.

WiFi challenges in our thick stone walled cottages (and our extensive foil-backed insulation) mean that you'll never experience the full speeds (except on a wired connection) but a quick survey with a laptop in all the cottages just now yielded a very consistent speed of 60-85 Mb/s both UP and DOWN ... and which doesn't slow down. AMAZING!

Share our journey:

The B4MS Community Project (Broadband for the Mint and Sprint), which began digging in July 2018 was in two phases the first (now complete) to the West of the River Mint (taking in the whole of Longsleddale) and the second to the East of the River Mint which includes The Hyning Estate.

The second phase was delayed due to problems finding a community location for the communications cabinet (with contractor access and power) and then by COVID.

After a 2 year delay the work finally started on the Grayrigg B4RN cabinet on 19th October 2021.

Meanwhile T.S. Trenching were digging towards the Hyning Estate ..

On 17th March 2022 ducting for the new Fibre Optic Gigabit B4RN Internet (FTTP) reached The Hyning Estate. 

And back at The Estate Office:

The enclosures that carry the fragile fibre (that you can see in the third photo) were installed both inside and outside The Estate Office.

On 21st April 2022, The B4RN Engineers spliced the final section of the Fibre Optic cable and installed our router:

The new service is provided by Broadband for the Rural North Ltd or ‘B4RN’ which was launched in December 2011 by a local volunteer group led by industry expert Barry Forde. Registered as a community benefit society with the FSA (under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965) it can never be bought by a commercial operator and its profits can only be distributed to the community.

Barry Forde’s background as an industry leading UK specialist in networking, particularly wide area fibre networks, means B4RN is professionally designed to world class standards; fast, resilient, expandable and futureproof. Chris Conder and Lindsey Annison as founding members of the team brought experience from other local community wireless mesh and fibre networks. Monica Lee brought management skills, and so B4RN was born. In 2015 both Barry and Chris were included on the Queen’s Honours list and awarded MBEs.