The villagers so sick of slow broadband they laid their own cables!
FOR years, the villagers of Michaelston-y-Fedw had endured one of the country’s slowest internet connections.
It could take five days to download a film, ten minutes to send an email and online banking was impossible.
But now the residents of the Welsh village have one of the fastest connections on the planet after they clubbed together to dig seven miles of broadband trenches.
The new fibre optic connection was switched on last week giving villagers a faster fibre optic connection than the one used by Nasa. The village, population 350, stands between Cardiff and Newport in South Wales, and has attracted retired couples over the years.
Unhappy with their internet speed, they realised that by pooling their skills they could take on the multinational internet providers and do a better job.
Former plumber and the scheme’s mastermind Dave Schofield, 53, said: ‘It all started over quite a few beers in the village pub on July 29 last year.
‘We’d all had enough of poor broadband and decided it was time to do something about it.’
Fortunately, three miles away in the neighbouring village of Coedkernew, is NGD, the largest data centre in Europe, which they could connect up to.
Local farmers agreed to allow fibre optic cables to run under their fields for free.
Grants were applied for and locals began investing in Mifi Michaelestone-y-Fedw’s own internet company.
In all, they raised £150,000 – and got the final £100,000 in a grant from the Welsh government. More than 95 per cent of residents have signed up for the scheme. The village now enjoys speeds of 940Mbs – a massive improvement on the previous one of 1.5Mbs.
Ben Longman, 52, landlord of the Cefn Mably Arms said: ‘I took over the pub 20 months ago and BT told me it would be several years before we could get superfast broadband.
‘We can now boast we have the fastest broadband of any pub in the UK, in fact I did some research and we are faster than NASA and Whitehall.
Retired steel industry worker Brinley Richards, 79, has lived in the village for 25 years. He said: ‘We laid the cables through fields, we went under rivers and even under a corner of the churchyard although none of the residents were disturbed.
‘With the help of the farmers giving us free access, we were able to do it up to 20 times cheaper than BT. There were no road closures and we didn’t need planning permission. I’m hoping that communities across the rest of the country will wake up and follow us. I didn’t know half the people living here before we started this, now we are all friends.’
Former human resources manager Carina Dunk, 61, has been nicknamed the Splice Queen by locals after she assembled the fibre-optic cables for more than 100 people’s routers.
The mother-of-two, who has lived in the village for 11 years, said: ‘I was excited to get involved, it has brought the whole village together.’
Villagers don’t get charged a connection fee for the service and will pay £30-a-month for their broadband. As Mifi is a non-profit making company, all proceeds will go to repairing potholes, litter picking and other community schemes.