Wiltshire valley locals build their own mobile phone network | Hacker News Reader

Wiltshire valley locals build their own mobile phone network

newscabal.co.uk

124 pointsColinWright26 comments

I deeply enjoy and root for projects like this. Combined with similar UK projects like B4RN [1] (a rural internet coop), it disproves the notion that infra spending must be grandiose or excessive to get connectivity to the most remote areas.

EDIT: Ahh, brilliant, it's even mentioned in the article:

> Inspired by an earlier initiative to set up a rural broadband network in Lancashire in north-west England called B4rn, the new mobile network relies on the willingness of the community to solve the problem themselves rather than wait for the government or the industry to sort it out.

[1] https://b4rn.org.uk/

Me too, but this made me both smile and feel sympathetic in equal measure:

> it is still encountering gremlins such as the text messages it occasionally spits out welcoming people to Jersey

One nice thing about this is that it doesn't need large hardware and the associated installation costs. According to the article, the local aerial installers can set it up (and presumably maintain it where needed).

With the FCC 2.5 GHz Rural Tribal Window[1], I would expect a lot of the tribes (or their designated org) will be trying to put up their own data networks. Its nice to see others that have already succeeded, as it seems like a pain to get any information on what equipment is needed.

1) https://www.fcc.gov/25-ghz-rural-tribal-window

I checked, and all of the reservations I frequent (pre-pandemic) have applied for this. But I doubt we'll see any build-out.

You can give the tribes all the spectrum you want, but unless it's satellite-delivered, there isn't the infrastructure to support it. Electricity can be very scarce on the rez.

Heck, right now the Navajos are bickering about how to spend $600 million in CARES act money. Most people want to use it to get running water. A smaller portion want it to be used to run electric lines to their homes.

As usual, the people in charge of the money are trying to figure out how much to put into their own pockets again.

Uhm, no I honestly think we will see the build out. There is quite a bit of meetings going on including with the Navajos to get this one done.

Uhm, yes. I honestly think nothing will come of this in the near term. I subscribe to the Navajo Times, and there hasn't been a thing in there about it.

I'm at one of the TCUs and have been attending the weekly meetings. They have to deploy a test in the first year to keep the spectrum. I expect with some of the players in the meetings it will get done.

You win.

> as it seems like a pain to get any information on what equipment is needed.

Do you have any info on this?

As a side note, a while back I found a company (https://rangenetworks.com/hardware) that developed and sold their own cell network equipment and tested it at burning man, at the time it seemed like they were the only alternative to big established players as well as the cheapest one.

Nope, I haven't got any idea about the equipment for this. I know we will have to get something pretty soon after the spectrum is awarded.

Whats the deal with 'newscabal' as a source?? this looks like a direct copy of this ft article: https://app.ft.com/content/e2f50ee7-7fc6-4155-bfd4-fcc4b2314...

This looks like the same James Body from Dangerous Demos (ClueCon, Kamailio World, Astricon etc) - very fortunate to have an industry veteran like him as the chair of the parish council for a project like this!

> The fledgling network has just secured part of a £2.25m government grant to fill in England’s largest “not-spot” — an area with no mobile signal — and could offer a solution to other pockets in the country blighted by a lack of coverage.

Why didn't the major telcos take on the job?

Locals refused to let them put up antennas.

Another article about this is at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24107045. We merged the threads.

£2.25M! 3 years!

I am struggling to see how “50 or so” masts could come to this cost. That’s £45k a mast. I can only think they’ve gone completely custom, getting boards and possibly chips fabbed. I can’t see where the cost comes from otherwise, as this gear is cheap as chips.

For what it’s worth, I’ve put up two cell masts on our property, as we live in a deep river valley with no signal, so I’m relaying UMTS on one and rebroadcasting my own cell on the one nearest to us, along with a directional 802.11n antenna to provide WiFi off the same mast.

I planned it out over the course of a few days, ordered everything, set it all up and tested it out before moving here, and banged both of them up the day after we arrived. Hell, the hardest bit was climbing a cliff with a 15ft mast and a sledgehammer on my back.

It’s all solar powered, and the total cost for all of the gear was under £1k.

This stuff is not complicated or expensive.

You're setting up a simple relay, piggy backing off existing telecom infrastructure to provide for one home.

Reading the article I would guess that this project is bringing mobile broadband to the area

> The experimental Ch4lke Mobile, which runs over just five masts, can connect homes to a network capable of delivering broadband-like speeds, in an area that had been left behind by the digital revolution.

I imagine the vast majority of that cost went to digging and laying fiber for tower backhaul, something you don't need to worry about if you're just connecting one home to an existing mast with fiber backhaul.

From what I understand, they are piggy-backing too - and we have broadband speeds here, not broadband-like.

“The service will be provided by delivering high speed broadband to a small cell within the community which then delivers both fixed wireless broadband and 4G mobile services to users via a low power high speed radio link.”

Given that there’s already BT fibre in the area, I’d imagine that’s what they’re using for their backhaul.

And as to fibre backhaul - I’ve just run 300m of trenched fibre down from the mast to a really awkward spot, and including media adaptors, SWA 4x fibre, and all the rest, it came to less than £1.5k.

>>And as to fibre backhaul - I’ve just run 300m of trenched fibre down from the mast to a really awkward spot, and including media adaptors, SWA 4x fibre, and all the rest, it came to less than £1.5k.

I know it's not your fiefdom, but if the numbers are so far off it might be worth reaching out to Ch4lke Mobile (i.e. the Wiltshire Chalk Valley parish council members) or the local MP John Glen to figure out where they could cut down on superfluous costs.

If they're going to roll out this type of model to other rural not-spots any cost savings that could be pragmatically realized would be fewer quid from taxpayer pockets.

>From what I understand, they are piggy-backing too - and we have broadband speeds here, not broadband-like.

They're operating as a full mobile network that will also allow users of other operators to roam onto them - it's a lot more than just running a repeater.

This is the kit they're using as cells:

http://www.accelleran.com/products/e101/

>£2.25M! 3 years!

>I am struggling to see how “50 or so” masts could come to this cost. That’s £45k a mast.

That funding is not just for this project - the funding has gone to a consortium it's part of:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-65-million-package-fo...

Gotcha - that now makes much more sense, and I’ll admit I skimmed for a number.

Thanks for that link - since I did what I’ve done here, I’ve had more than a few people express their gratitude and astonishment that they now have WiFi and signal when they go fishing (as the only other people we ever see here are fishermen), and the local mayor asked about a week ago if I would be able to do the same for a village nearby which has no cell reception... I’m going up there this week to take a look at the lay of the land. I’d been considering a series of relay towers, but it may not be the best option depending on a bunch of factors.

I dare say if I do go down the route of setting up an actual cell provider then I’ll have a damn sight more appreciation for the complexities these guys faced.

Whilst your WiFi repeater is obviously licence-exempt, I can't imagine Ofcom being too happy if they found out about you repeating UMTS.

I’m in very, very rural Portugal, and there is bugger all to interfere with here - the initial repeater is highly directional, using an yagi to throw it down about a kilometre and 300 vertical meters into the valley. The omni repeater in the valley has a range of about 300m, and doesn’t reach out of the valley. It’s all as low power as I could get away with while having a tenable signal, as having multiple days of autonomy off the batteries is a must in the winter, so every Wh counts.

If there ever is cellular service here to interfere with, I’ll gladly scrap the lot, as it would be redundant.

> £2.25M! 3 years!

That is not what the article said. They have already created the network out of their own money.

What the article said was, "The fledgling network has just secured part of a £2.25m government grant". So they just got "part" of £2.25m. What part? I don't know. This grant money maybe spread across multiple organizations. The article doesn't specify.

> Hell, the hardest bit was climbing a cliff with a 15ft mast and a sledgehammer on my back.

How much did you charge for that?

DIY is a lot cheaper if you can do lots of professional specialised jobs to a lower safety and quality standard without any money changing hands..

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