A few years ago <i>Ars</i> also had a good article on Ammon, Idaho, which build an open-access municipal fibre infrastructure that ISPs offer services on:<p>* <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-if-switching-fiber-isps-was-as-easy-as-clicking-a-mouse/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-...</a><p>The embedded video is a good intro on muni-fibre:<p>* <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSQVvFY4lPI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSQVvFY4lPI</a><p>Personally I think that's how all Internet connectivity should be done: the OIS Level 1/2 stuff is run either by the government, or at least a non-profit, and the IP connectivity is handle by the private sector.
It is also funny to look at a map of network speeds in the UK. Everywhere is slow apart from Hull (a relatively gritty fishing town in the North East). This is the only place where the local telephone company wasn't taken over by BT, and was the first city to have full fibre.<p>I understand that it is hard to provide fast internet to some parts of the UK...but most of England, where most people live, is fairly densely populated...this shouldn't be hard. The solution isn't for people to do this themselves, that reverses common sense (how can it be cheaper for some guy to just dig a cable themselves? it makes no sense). It is for the people who should be doing this to just do their job properly (BT have done pretty much everything to make themselves look bad, it is unreal...for some reason people still think Gavin Patterson is a legend rather than a gaffe-prone moron).
My Partners family were one of the originals on this (and live just outside the village). It has to be said that it is by far the best broadband I have experienced - even when compared to corporate internet that I work with
Great to see this story on HN, I have been at a home which was connected to B4RN and got 105mb down/154mb up.<p>And yes, I kept a note of it for some reason.
Clapham is not remote at all, however, B4rn does serve more remote areas and farms. Also the network started in a village called Arkholme and the HQ based in Melling.