Barry Forde – CEO of Pioneering Rural FTTP ISP B4RN to Retire
Very sad to see Barry a pioneer of rural local broadband planning to hang up his boots!
The founder and CEO of UK rural “full fibre” broadband ISP B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North), Barry Forde MBE, has this morning announced that he intends to retire by the end of this year. The provider’s Board is currently overseeing the ongoing process of appointing a successor.
The provider, which has been busy building a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to rural homes since 2012, is registered as a Community Benefit Society (i.e. it can’t be bought by a commercial operator and profits are distributed back into the community) and can reach into some very remote parts of Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Yorkshire.
B4RN is also partly funded by local communities, which volunteer their time and exchange free wayleaves (e.g. access over farm land) in order to help physically build the new fibre infrastructure (volunteers on soft digs through fields etc.). As a result, their full fibre network has been able to reach into locations where it might otherwise have been considered too expensive for a normal commercial operator.