• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to footer

Talk About Local HomepageTalk About Local

Hyperlocal in the UK

  • Home
  • Working with us
  • In the press
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • LNE

Rural broadband – practical tips if you have a dire connection

7th July 2015 by William Perrin Leave a Comment

These slides contain some practical tips for alternatives to struggling with a dire rural broadband connection in the UK.  They are an extract from a longer talk I gave yesterday to a Tinder Foundation audience of people who work on digital inclusion in rural areas.  Points that emerged in the discussion included:

the lack of rural broadband was an important issue for peoples economic and social inclusion

many were hacked off with BT – people who had management engagement with them about broadband issues simply felt fobbed off, politely.

very few had a grasp of the government BDUK broadband plans in their area

there was little awareness of the practical steps that can be taken if you are in a marginal coverage zone right now such as a cheap simple 3G antenna and modem router.

Here are the slides – I knocked them together to be illustrative and need to stress that the nature of radio waves inparticular means that you can’t be certain if say an outdoor antenna will get you 3G without experimenting on the site where you need it.  I was asked afterwards for some mobile (car or van based) solutions Nick Appleby of 3G Router store has suggested this modem/router and this antenna which look like they should work well if you keep in the car a bag of PAYG sims from each network.

The collapse of the BDUK deal in Devon and Somerset a few days ago shows how difficult it will be to get superfast broadband to the last 10% of homes in rural areas in a way that the government can afford.

  • About
  • Latest Posts
Follow Will

William Perrin

Founder of Talk About Local, Trustee of the Indigo Trust, Tinder Foundation, 360Giving, co-founder Connect8, former member of UK Government transparency panels, former Policy Advisor to UK Prime Minister, former Cabinet Office senior civil servant.Open data do-er, Kings Cross London blogger. Loves countryside. Two small children.
Follow Will

Latest posts by William Perrin (see all)

  • So what does the digital charter mean? - 21st June 2017
  • Hyperlocal blog can help hold power to account in tower block blaze - 14th June 2017
  • A vision for regulating the digital sphere after Brexit? - 6th April 2017

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: #ruralbroadband, tinderfoundation

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Footer

Search

  • Contact
  • Guidelines
  • Legal

© 2018 · talk about local · Maintained by Turriff Web