Core node in Cumbria

Last weekend seen a team formed from NextGenUs and local community volunteers to connect our core node for the Eden Valley to fibre.

By mid day on Saturday, we had used our trencher to reach the road opposite the farm building where our mast is positioned.



Joan Raine, Chairman of Eden District Council kindly attended to lend a hand with the Herald photographer coming along to report on our activities for the this week's edition which I have attached below.



The afternoon seen us laying ducting in the trench, backfilling and bringing the ducting into the building with the help of local volunteers Simon, Nick and Hector. Thanks also to Martin at Krypton TV whom we are partnered with to provide next generation TV services over connections we deploy.



A final step seen me moving all our equipment into the newly installed cabinet. As you can see, the ducting is ready to go right into the cabinet.



Penrith and the Borders MP and broadband campaigner Rory Stewart commented "NextGenUs has been a passionate advocate for connecting remote rural communities to broadband. They are determined and ambitious and push into areas which other companies have avoided. I am delighted they are now pressing ahead in Eden and I wish them and the communities, with which they are working, all the best.".

We have been continuing to extend our trench this week and will continue next week in order for ducting to be laid and a fibre optic cable pulled through. This will then be ready to connect to trunk fibre optic cabling already in the ground which will take us to Manchester where we can 'break out' onto the internet and begin providing services to customers...

NGU FiWi leads Digital Britain

A speedtest result posted by NGU customer in Hull today some 2km distant from FiWi source that offers a higher throughput, approaching 140Mbps, than available anywhere else in the UK today, all for less than £1 per day!

Whilst FTTH is certainly the objective for future-proof access to digital services, FiWi is a good intermediate step for both urban and rural areas alike.

Just for Fun

Here are a couple of marketing images the team are currently playing with, just for fun :)

Work continues in Cumbria...

Following on from our Cumbria private sector investment announcement, the past few weeks have seen a lot of work put into deploying networks in the Eden Valley and surrounding areas.

Milburn
The local school kindly allowed us to use their flag pole for installation of devices to act as a receive station and local distribution node as it hadn't been used since the golden jubilee of our queen! A cherry picker allowed me to easily get access to the top of the pole to attach devices. Most properties in the village have direct line of sight to this pole and will be pleased to go from an average speed of 0.3Mbps to 30Mbps+!



Cliburn
The owners of the former Golden Pheasant pub in Cliburn kindly allowed us to put up a pole on their building to receive and distribute broadband locally. It is central in the village and allows us to see about half of all properties. The remaining will be accessed by other node locations we will install in the village. While some properties such as the Golden Pheasant get 6-7Mbps, many properties struggle to get 2Mbps due to bad quality cables so will appreciate a speed boost.




Great Salkeld
Due to the village being set low down, we recognised the need for a higher location to receive signal in for local distribution. Below you can see the work completed last weekend which involved attaching a device to a tree to receive signal, digging over a garden and putting up a pole on the side of a log shed to send signals down to the village. Thanks to Richard for letting us use his garden and to Hector, Nick, Mike, Richard, Matthew, Mikie and David for helping out. Again, this is another village with varied speeds from 1 to 5Mbps.



As well as the above, we also have nodes at Blencarn and Murton. Kings Meaburn will be completed in the next week and Newby, Morland, Reagill, Crosby Ravensworth, Great Stickland, Little Strickland, Long Marton, Hilton, Kirkby Thore and Brampton are locations we aim to install in over August.

All we await now so we can begin connecting customers is an internet connection to our core node which is due to be installed shortly. More news on this over the next week...