Residents in the rural Cumbria (England) villages of Kirkoswald and Great Salkeld, which previously worked with local ISP B4RN to build a new full fibre (FTTP) broadband network (partly funded by government vouchers), have been left puzzled after Fibrus started building a similar network in the same area under a publicly funded Project Gigabit contract.
A quick look at both of the Eden Valley villages shows that they appear to be well covered by B4RN’s network, which is a registered Community Benefit Society (i.e. they can’t be bought by a commercial operator and profits go back into the community) and one that often engages local volunteers to help fund and build their network. This often facilitates strong community engagement and a high take-up for B4RN’s fibre optic network.
In theory, this would normally mean that the vast majority of both villages would not have been eligible for public funding under the government’s regional Project Gigabit contract for Cumbria (Lot 28), which was awarded to Fibrus back in November 2022 (here and here). Under that contract, which is worth £108m (state aid), the provider is expected to extend their network to reach 60,000 hard-to-reach premises across rural parts of the county.
However, some residents within the aforementioned communities have recently reported (via CW Herald) receiving a letter from Fibrus, which states that street works aimed at deploying a new FTTP network are due to take place in the communities via Viberoptix (Fibrus’ civil engineering contractor). In fact, Fibrus has already started the work, with a new street cabinet recently appearing in Kirkoswald.
Beverley Pink, a villager who initiated the B4RN project, said:
“I couldn’t believe it when I learnt that some residents were in receipt of a letter saying works are to be carried out by a company called Viberoptix, working on behalf of internet provider Fibrus. The letter further states that this has been made possible by Building Digital UK (BDUK) government funding. I was surprised to hear this, since our parish already benefits from being part of a B4RN community broadband project and every household, no matter how remote, already has access to the network at very reasonable rates.
The B4RN project was only possible with the support of a government-funded voucher scheme, along with lots of local volunteer input. We have, therefore, already benefited from public funding, so I was shocked to find that BDUK are now paying for a second set of fibre cables to be laid. This work is expensive and it is a monumental waste of money for a second network to be laid, at vast public expense, when there are other areas in Cumbria with very poor connectivity who would benefit greatly from this spending.”
Similar clashes have occurred in the past, albeit between Openreach and B4RN, but those occurred under an older scheme and sometimes involved a mix of commercial builds, rather than ones that are supported by public funding.
By comparison, Project Gigabit was designed with a more robust Open Market Review (OMR) and Public Review (PR) process (i.e. used for identifying existing and future gigabit broadband coverage over the next 3 years, to avoid unnecessary overbuild), which should be helping to avoid such conflicts.
However, both Fibrus and the government have now suggested to ISPreview that local residents may have been given the wrong impression by the recent letters, with the operator being more focused on building through the area in order to reach premises outside those two communities (i.e. not to serve the villages themselves).
A DSIT spokesperson told ISPreview:
“Broadband provider Fibrus has installed a cabinet in Kirkoswald as part of their Project Gigabit rollout. The infrastructure is necessary for delivering faster broadband to hard-to-reach premises outside the village. It is not intended to serve any premises in the immediate area, which already has good coverage thanks to the government’s gigabit voucher scheme.”
A Fibrus spokesperson said:
“Fibrus is committed to adopting the most effective and least impactful network build solutions possible to connect premises in Cumbria. Therefore, we use existing infrastructure to minimise disruption wherever possible.
In this instance, the cabinet in Kirkoswald conforms to safety and planning requirements and is located on our backhaul route to maximise the use of existing infrastructure. The placement of this cabinet allows residents from 300 premises in villages nearby, who did not previously have access, to enjoy the benefits of Full Fibre broadband.”
Quite why some locals received the seemingly promotional letters is unclear, but we suspect they were probably just a generic build notifications that simply hadn’t been updated to reflect the unique nature of Fibrus’ plan to build through (rather than to) B4RN’s existing villages. The cabinet is only sited in Kirkoswald due to existing spine routes and for network performance reasons.
However, there are still cases where overbuild could still occur due to additionality in the future, which is where a contracted network operator goes beyond their intended coverage (i.e. the bit that takes places with public funded) as a result of the build making some previously unviable premises, viable. But such extensions, while facilitated by the contracted build, normally involve a separate commercial investment and so do not duplicate public investment. It remains to be seen whether this will also happen in Kirkoswald and Great Salkeld.