2014 – 2016: The Fibre Broadband Project
By 2014, the need for high-speed broadband throughout the country had become all too apparent, but rural areas were lagging far behind. St James was a prime example of this.
We collected opinions and experiences from around the village, these are extracts from some of them:
Initiatives involving increasing numbers of very unhappy villagers, our MP and the Parish Meeting were brought together to find out why St James was missing out, look for a solution and apply pressure on the Better Broadband Suffolk (BBS) programme, the Government and BT Openreach.
A number of super-fast broadband cabinets had appeared in the middle of almost deserted areas with posters proclaiming that super-fast broadband had arrived and that St Cross exchange had been completed. This resulted in a few remote properties close to the upgraded service cabinets having 37Mbps. Centres of population, agriculture and business such as St James, a few kilometres away, struggled to get any service on the existing network with no certainty of a fast service for many years, possibly well into the next decade.
Following an approach to the Openreach CEO, in a joint meeting with our MP, BT, the Suffolk programme and our Parish Meeting, we were told that BT had released from the laboratory a new fibre node product. This needed to be tested as part of their broadband technology and might offer a way to help with the St James problem. This product (known as Gfast) was now due for field trials, and it was evident that St James offered BT an excellent opportunity to test it in a rural setting, with possible substantial benefits for our community.
Detailed planning with Openreach in September - October 2014 made it clear that there were two significant parts to a successful broadband solution for St James: the technology trial within the village and providing a fibre connection from the main network into St James. Several in the village worked with Openreach to find access routes and the landowners potentially involved and to gain community commitment.
The result: two local farming businesses not only gave approval for the fibre to be routed over their land but agreed to carry out the associated trenching and ducting installation (self-dig), to direct the work of the contractors that would be hired and to underwrite the cost of all this, a sum totalling many £000. Others, businesses, households and individuals, and the council’s locality budget contributed towards the costs involved, as did the Parish Meeting by a unanimous vote. To a significant degree this had become a community-funded initiative. The support in the village was such that more than 40 households also agreed to participate in the technology trial. Regular newsletters kept everyone up to date with progress.
Detailed planning for both aspects of the project took us into 2015. It was also apparent that something would have to follow the trial: just ending Gfast speeds would not be acceptable. As a kind of “thank you” from Openreach they agreed to leave us with full Fibre To The Premise connections throughout the village.
The self-dig work meant that "we" dug a trench and lay cable duct from St Cross to the western edge of the village. BT Openreach then put the fibre cable in, filled in any gaps with cable on poles, took the cable into and through the village (with more trenching and definitely more poles), and then set about making service available via the new technology being installed around the village.
The Gfast trial ran through the second half of the year into early 2016. We became accustomed to the fleets of Openreach vans and parties of BT-wide and international guests being shown round what could be done in a remote Suffolk village. 62 households took part.
“The trial of the new Gfast technology at St James is now drawing to a close, having been highly successful in identifying and fixing many technical issues related to deploying such a new technology in a challenging rural overhead cable network. The St James environment has been invaluable as a proving ground for many installation techniques and processes that have now been adopted as best practice for use throughout the country.
Technical and service issues found over the last 6 months have enabled equipment fixes to be developed, deployed and successfully tested.* Almost a third of the village trial applicants have been provided with an extremely fast and reliable broadband service.
The co-operation and patience from all villagers has been greatly appreciated by the trial team, and the support and welcome that we have always received has been fantastic. A huge amount of Openreach resource and effort has been invested into the trial – evidenced by the number of new cables and poles all over the village! The provision of the fibre into the village will be the lasting legacy of the trial and will bring vastly improved broadband into the village for many years to come. Many thanks to all the villagers for all the help in getting us to a successful trial conclusion.
* As an example, the electromagnetic effect of 2km of 6KV electric fence pulsing on and off every couple of seconds was new to the Openreach team.
The Gfast trial network is now converted in readiness for the Fibre to the Home service, which is currently being ‘commissioned’ by remote teams who are preparing all the records and systems ready to take orders.
— Quote from the Lead Technology Consultant, BT Technology Service & Operations
From spring 2016 we were able to start ordering fast broadband service for delivery over our full-fibre network. The legacy of the project is high-speed fibre broadband, with speeds up to or over 1Gbps,through the village right to our homes from the superfast broadband service provider of our choice.
“I am very proud to say that … we are providing fibre to the premise to the community of St James. This has been a long but rewarding and literally ground-breaking journey which started from huddling around the table at the Grange leading to walking fields knocking on doors culminating in finally providing a workable andtechnologically advanced answer to the challenge of bringing superfast broadband to St James.
All this would not have been possible without the determination and enthusiasmin equal measurefrom both the community and project teams involved. The cups of soup and ginger biscuits also went a long way in keeping us going. The original “self-dig” in St James was a first and became the blueprint for use on future projects.
Thank you on behalf of us all for your patience and assistance.”
— Quote from the Openreach Project Director
