Farmer told he must pay £100,000 for broadband

Cost of rural living hits home with what could be Britain’s most expensive internet connection

HAVING new fibre broadband installed is usually a straightforward task requiring no more than a couple of hundred pounds for a contract and the inconvenience of a day of drilling.

But for one Cumbrian farmer, a decent internet connection came with what may be Britain’s most expensive broadband price tag.

Jim Webster, of Page Bank Farm near Barrow-in-furness, was asked to stump up more than £100,000 in order to get a 10 megabit per second connection linked to his home.

Mr Webster was seeking an upgrade through a government scheme that gives people the right to request a minimum download speed.

But installing such cables in remote rural areas can often cost networks money, requiring them to dig up roads and lay new cables.

If the cost of installing the cable is less than £3,400, people can get it done free of charge under the Government’s Universal Service Obligation. But any higher and consumers must cover the extra costs.

The farmer was informed by BT, which manages installations under the Universal Service Obligation, that installing the cable would come with an astronomical price tag.

Mr Webster told Farmers Weekly was quoted £70,000-£100,000 the phone. He was then asked would like the quote in writing.

He said: “I thought, ‘I am not missing getting a written quotation for this sort of money’.

“Not only that, I thought once they put it in writing, they would cut it down a bit to something more sensible.

It shows how wrong you can be, The final quote was £104,311.20.

Mr Webster added: “You can buy houses for less than that. We could buy a flat in town, use it as an office, and it is cheaper than getting broadband.”

He said that the farm’s nearest fibre cable runs to the top of his road, around a 10-minute walk away. Mr Webster said it was “not the estimate of somebody who actually wants to do the work”.

It came despite BT’S announcement that it planned to spend £12billion on upgrading the UK’S network to fibre broadband, which is capable of speeds of between 30 megabits per second

‘We could buy a flat in town, use it as an office, and it is cheaper than getting broadband’

and at least 900 megabits per second – which can download a high definition film in under two minutes.

The Government has committed to spending £5billion on fibre and “gigabit capable” broadband by 2025 to ensure the whole UK is covered by such speeds.

But Mr Webster’s problem shows the huge costs associated with laying new fibre optics in rural Britain.

A BT spokesman said: “We apologise to Mr Webster for the disappointment his quote has caused.

“His property is three kilometres away from our nearest usable network, which means extensive civil engineering, build and cabling work is needed to provide a connection.

“Mr Webster could reduce the cost by exploring opportunities to self-dig parts of the route, or by clubbing together with other homes nearby to see if that is viable. They could also use government vouchers for this to further reduce the cost.”