Broadband village goes it alone

A village yesterday launched its own high-speed broadband company after raising £37,000 to create its own service.
By The Newsroom
Published 14th Apr 2010, 21:42 BST
Updated 14th Apr 2010, 21:42 BST

Rutland Telecom was set up after the community in Lyddington, Rutland, Leicestershire, raised the cash to get themselves faster broadband speeds than they could get from BT.

The system is expected to create a 40Mbps service, averaging at 25Mbps –the UK average is around 3.2Mbps.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The company said it would be the first time residents will be able to watch streaming HD TV, BBC iPlayer and other digital online services.

The system, said to be a significant milestone in UK telecoms history, delivers the service from a street cabinet using a process called subloop unbundling.

It has seen villagers transferred from a BT to a Rutland Telecom-owned street cabinet, which means their voice and data services are delivered from what is effectively a new village mini-telephone exchange.

Rutland Telecom managing director Dr David Lewis said: "As a local IT company we were constantly getting inquiries about high-speed broadband and decided to see how this could be provided.

"We found that by exploiting telecoms legislation we could utilise

parts of BT's existing infrastructure and supply next generation broadband services via community funded projects."

Related topics:Leicestershire