A broadband mast has been vandalised four times in four weeks, affecting thousands of people, according to an internet provider.

The latest attack on the mast near Barnstaple in north Devon happened last Saturday, said Airband.

Spokesman James Hyland said: “We share the frustration of the public and we are sorry for the disruption.”

The company, which is bringing broadband to rural areas of north Devon, said it had informed the police.

Fibre optic cable delivering “essential ultrafast broadband connectivity to the rural communities of north Devon” had been cut through, Mr Hyland said.

Local residents have been “severed” from the wider broadband network, which he said was a “real shame as many businesses and residents are more reliant on this service than ever with the current climate”.

“This is now part of an ongoing criminal investigation,” Mr Hyland said. “Be assured that we’re working with all local agencies to get this sorted once and for all.”

He said it was not clear why the mast, which has no 5G links, had been targeted.

Police said they believed the latest attack happened between 14:30 BST on 16 September and 08:40 on 18 September on Mill Road in Barnstaple.

They said a report of criminal damage had been made after an “unknown implement” was used to damage broadband cabling.

Attacks on 5G masts in the UK have been fuelled by conspiracy theories wrongly linking 5G and coronavirus.

The gap between urban and rural broadband performance is narrowing, according to a new study by Ofcom, but campaigners say this is ‘just the start’ after years of poor connectivity.

Data shows that the 9% difference between the proportion of urban (74%) and rural (65%) home broadband lines, with an average evening peak-time speed of 30 Mbit/s or higher in March 2021, was lower than the 12% difference recorded in November 2019.

This comes as the availability and take-up of superfast, ultrafast and gigabit services have increased in rural areas of the country.

However, the difference between the March 2021 proportions of urban (5%) and rural (17%) broadband lines, with an average 8-10pm peak-time actual download speed of less than 10 Mbit/s (12pp), was unchanged since November 2019, when the respective urban and rural figures were 10% and 22%.

Although the difference between average urban and rural peak-time download speeds is declining, average peak-time download speeds in urban areas (55.1 Mbit/s) were still a third higher than those in rural areas (41.3 Mbit/s) in March 2021.

While the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) welcomed the figures as a step in the right direction, it warned the rural economy was still being held back by poor broadband.

The government has launched a £4m fund to back projects trialling running fibre optic broadband cables through water pipes to help connect hard-to-reach homes without digging up roads.

The money will also be used to test out monitors in pipes that can help water companies identify and repair leaks more quickly. About a fifth of water put into public supply every day is lost via leaks and it is hoped that sensors could help deliver water companies’ commitment to reduce water loss by half.

Infrastruture works, in particular installing new ducts and poles, can make up as much as four-fifths of the costs to industry of building new gigabit-capable broadband networks, the government said.

The project is designed to help cut those costs, and is part of a plan to improve broadband and mobile signals in rural areas.

The digital infrastructure minister, Matt Warman, said: “The cost of digging up roads and land is the biggest obstacle telecoms companies face when connecting hard-to-reach areas to better broadband, but beneath our feet there is a vast network of pipes reaching virtually every building in the country.

“So we are calling on Britain’s brilliant innovators to help us use this infrastructure to serve a dual purpose of serving up not just fresh and clean water but also lightning-fast digital connectivity.”

Broadband Savvy has released the results of a study into the cost and performance of UK broadband in different geographies, conducted by OnePoll. The study compared broadband speeds paid for and received by consumers across the country, and how much people pay for their home broadband.

The survey revealed that rural households pay 76 per cent more for broadband compared to those in urban locations. In towns and city fringes, broadband costs 22 per cent more on average than it does in urban centres.

Rural households are also more likely to receive slower broadband speeds than what they pay for, compared to those in cities. People living in urban areas receive speeds 3 per cent slower than what they pay for on average, while the figure is 19 per cent in suburban neighbourhoods. Those living in the rural UK receive speeds 28 per cent slower on average than the advertised typical download speed.

“We expected rural broadband to cost more than in other parts of the UK, but not by this much,” said Tom Paton, founder of Broadband Savvy. “It’s not just that the quoted prices are higher in rural areas – we also found that ISPs often deliver slower speeds than what they promise consumers who live in the countryside. This reflects decades of infrastructure failings – the ancient copper cabling that many rural households rely on simply isn’t capable of providing a quality, consistent broadband connection.”

By region, the North East, Northern Ireland, and Scotland have the UK’s most expensive broadband, paying £0.58, £0.51, and £0.46 respectively per megabit of download speed received. By contrast, London, Wales, and the South East have the cheapest broadband, at £0.23, £0.28, and £0.35 respectively.

People in rural areas of the UK have revealed what it is like to use Elon Musk’s satellite broadband service after struggling with poor connectivity.

Musk’s SpaceX company has already launched more than 1,000 satellites into Earth’s orbit as part of its Starlink programme, which aims to beam high-speed internet to those left behind by traditional cable-based providers.

But this is just the beginning of the project – Musk reportedly wants to have tens of thousands of his satellites in space eventually, enabling a seamless connection for all users.

Early testing of Starlink was recently opened up to UK residents desperate for a better connection in certain parts of the country, while other areas have been told to expect coverage arriving sometime in mid to late 2021.

Aaron Wilkes, who lives in Bredgar, Kent, told the PA news agency his household’s fixed line should achieve about 20 megabits per second (Mbps) – significantly less than the 71.8Mbps national average reported by Ofcom for May 2020 – but he said the service often lagged between 0.5 and 1Mbps. Such speeds made it almost impossible to stream Netflix or download large video games.

“The ability to be able to download content so quickly compared to our standard BT line is amazing,” said Wilkes.

However, it does not come cheap, at £439 for the hardware and a monthly cost of £89. Plus, there are planned outages due to the limited number of satellites and the fact that Starlink is still in early testing. But those who have suffered with sluggish internet say it is a price worth paying.

Internet and network providers have asked the government to clarify why its promised £5bn investment in rural broadband has been reduced to £1.2bn.

Industry bodies said they wanted clarity on how and when the remaining £3.8bn would be allocated.

The change was announced in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review.

The government has also watered down its election pledge to reach every home in the country to the lower target of 85%.

Providing all homes and businesses in the UK with gigabit broadband speeds by 2025 was one of Boris Johnson’s most ambitious election pledges.

It came with the promise of £5bn to get the job done – but in the spending review it was announced that only £1.2bn of that would be made available over the next four years.

Wisbech is a pretty market town in Cambridgeshire but it’s an area divided by access to fast broadband.

Paul Brett moved to the area in 2003, seeking a slightly more laid-back way of life. But as a software engineer, he also needed fast broadband.

And despite being in a location that is not exactly rural – he can see the town from his house – he has struggled, initially on a 0.5Mbps (megabits per second) connection when he moved in, rising to 5Mbps now – still in the bottom few in the country for broadband speed.

A few years ago he was hopeful he could make the leap into the 21st century when a technology called Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) finally became available to the town.

He was disappointed to find it didn’t help.

“My speed halved – rather than being an upgrade it got worse, so I immediately cancelled that and got my money back,” he says.

That’s because FTTC, as the name suggests, runs only to the nearest green street cabinet. For the last part of the journey, broadband has to travel along old copper wire – which means that the further away you live, the worse the speed gets.

Not to be defeated, Mr Brett clubbed together with some of his neighbours to persuade BT to run 1Gbps (gigabit per second) fibre broadband to their street.

But when the quote came back from Openreach, the spin-off from BT that is responsible for the vast majority of the UK’s broadband infrastructure, he was shocked.

“I was quoted £101,855.00 – which seemed high.”

There was no breakdown of the cost but Openreach had helpfully done some of the maths – for 17 premises the cost per home or business would be £5,991.47, with the possibility of vouchers taking an estimated £20,000 off the overall estimate.

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.

The British communications regulator Ofcom has confirmed it has begun an investigation of BT and its charges to install or upgrade rural broadband connections.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the investigation over whether BT is overcharging for connections comes after reports of people receiving quotes as high as £100,000.

At the moment, Openreach (which runs most of the UK’s broadband network), has a legal obligation (the universal service obligation’ or USO) to ensure that homes in the UK receive a minimum speed of 10Mbps.

MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) have previously warned the government is not doing enough to tackle the digital divide between rural and urban areas,

The 10Mbps goal is deemed to be the minimum for modern internet requirements such as watching Netflix or playing Fortnite and other online games.

BT must bear the cost, up to a maximum of £3,400 of meeting this USO.

But in extremely rural areas, the cost of getting a viable broadband connection can be higher….much much higher.

In such cases BT will still connect a property with broadband if the consumer is willing to pay the excess amount assessed by the carrier.

The Guardian newspaper highlighted a number of cases where BT reportedly demanded huge connection charges.

In one case, a customer in High Peak, Cheshire, was quoted £100,000 to upgrade. Another, in Woodbridge, Suffolk, was quoted £70,000 to connect to 10Mbps broadband.

The annoying thing for me is that I can actually see the telephone exchange from my house and yet the four-week wait for connection turned into eight, even though the previous owners had telephone and internet.

Three years later, the problem is getting worse. Slow speeds and drop outs happen every day. As a writer working from home, this can be very annoying if you have an eleven o’clock deadline and the service goes down in central Whitby.

It is a shame that so many areas of our county fall into areas that even the Government admits are forgotten and neglected. Statistics from
Ofcom showed that while broadband in urban areas of England has an average speed of 35.3Mb, in rural areas that speed is just 17.5Mb. That’s not enough to provide any business or householder with a decent connection.

Few users over a wide area are not financially attractive to the internet line providers, due to the economic challenges of building expensive new networks.

The Government’s gigabit voucher scheme allows individuals and groups in rural areas to apply for money to get them connected to broadband, which according to Digital Minister Matt Warman still has £70m “there for the taking”.

Having looked at the scheme, it is very complicated and needs to be clearer and more widely advertised. The money would be better allocated if it was just given to the line providers with the demand that every rural home is connected by 2025. 

It is important that connections should be hard wired and not supplied through 5g wifi. What Yorkshire doesn’t need is more electronic smog covering the countryside. We are still in early days in our understanding of electro-magnetic fields (EMF) and their effect on the human body.

In the race to get better rural and urban internet connection, it is important to take into consideration what the effects of new technologies can have on individuals and the environment.