Broadband to beam out from Herefordshire's churches in UK first

Published by allpay Broadband for allpay Limited in Bill Payments

THE deal that gets Herefordshire a broadband network of its own is done and its the first of its kind in the world. Churches throughout the county can now marry medieval technology with the 21st century for a super-fast internet service that uses their towers as transmitters.

The Diocese of Hereford has signed off a model licence allowing go-ahead county firm Allpay to roll out the 4Mb wireless service from the start of year after 12 months of trials.

With the model licence in place, a test system Allpay got working at Kingstone over a year ago is now available to every parish in the county as a network. That network could be the key to keeping whatever the £5 million-£10 million investment in broadband that the government backed BDUK initiative brings to the county beyond 2015. Allpay is already in talks with a potential partner over fibre optic options for the service and is pitching to OFCOM to be an official telecommunications operator.

The Hereford Times has reported on the joint Allpay-Diocesan initiative from the off. In its current form the system is the first of its kind in the world.
Anni Holden, for Hereford Diocese, said the service was a "breakthrough" for a county where many were still struggling with dial-up access to the web. "(The diocese) has been here for more than a thousand years, and already supports a very radical strategy to the modern use of our historic buildings, leading the way within the Church of England. This is an extension of that policy," she said.
Allpay boss Tony Killeen said the work his company had done with the Diocese was "very much" an example of the Big Society in action. "Two local organisations have come together to tackle a problem facing thousands of people in our community," he said.

The model licence has taken nearly a year to agree, but ensures that historic churches can embrace the system's equipment appropriately for Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings.
Each church will have to apply for its licence individually, Peterchurch is likely to be next followed by Madley and Wellington over the next few months.

With the model licence in place many more parishes that previously expressed an interest will be looking to go live, there is even the possibility of a receiver on Hereford Cathedral tower.
Over the New Year churches across the diocese are going to get clear instructions on how they can get involved by approving the idea through their parochial church councils. Allpay will then help with and pay for the legal licence process and install the equipment.

BACKGROUND - BROADBAND IN HEREFORDSHIRE

Better broadband is acknowledged as a top economic priority for the county.
Overall, 57% of Herefordshire's postcode areas have the potential for broadband up to 2 Mbps. However in 2008, 46% of rural areas were likely to receive no service or low broadband speed (up to 0.512 Mbps), compared to only 1% of urban areas.

Right now, BT is the only major provider in the county and it will have trouble offering 2Mbps to
everyone by 2012, as the Government has proposed under Digital Britain. However, if the county is not to be left behind the rest of the world we need to look at implementing a communications infrastructure that will last for 50 years or longer, with broadband speeds in excess of 10Mbps.
This can be achieved through homes and businesses being able to connect to a service offering at least 10Mbps download speed and 5Mbps upload speed, by 2015.
In the short term, by 2012, all homes and premises to have affordable access to broadband at speeds of 2Mbps.

By 2020 any home and business should have the opportunity to access 100Mbps download speed with a choice of upload speeds. How this can be delivered is subject to a range of technical options, but the majority of homes and premises should be served by a county wide fibre optic infrastructure. New homes and new premises on business parks should be built by their developers with fibre optic connections.
In the government's Comprehensive Spending Review October 2010 Herefordshire was identified as a trial area for superfast broadband which will have an impact on access to improved IT for service delivery.

Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) is the organisation appointed by the government to deliver improved broadband services in the UK. They will let contracts for delivery of a 2Mb minimum service during 2011, to be completely rolled out by the end of 2015.
In parallel, in July, they announced that they would fund three superfast broadband pilots to provide experience of the issues of delivering fast broadband in hard to reach areas. Herefordshire, backed by Advantage West Midlands, submitted a bid for
the Golden Valley and south border area of Herefordshire to be a pilot area, extending into Wales and Gloucestershire in their adjacent border areas.

News story featured in the Hereford Times on December 30th 2010 and written by Bill Tanner