Villagers dig 15 miles of trenches in the name of faster Internet
Michaelston-y-Fedw, located between Cardiff and Newport in the United Kingdom, has a population of around 300 people. They were all putting up with shitty internet, with speeds as slow as 4Mbps. It was possible to pay for high-speed broadband service in Michaelston-y-Fedw — someone is always willing to take your money — but the infrastructure to pipe the bandwidth into the village didn’t exist. Sick of their internet connectivity being caught in the late 1990s, some of the villagers got to drinking, which led to talking and, after a bit more drinking, resulted in a plan: They’d sort the mess out themselves.
From The Guardian:
A community interest company was set up and grants secured from the Welsh government but to keep the costs to householders down it was decided that as much work as possible would be done by villagers themselves.
Local farm workers have been hired to help dig, but villagers have done much of the work, including excavating trenches from the boundaries of their properties to the external wall where the fibre enters their homes.
Thanks to the villagers’ efforts, 90% of their community will be able to enjoy broadband connection speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps by the fall.
The project is a wonderful example of how even just a few individuals getting together for a common cause can change the world for the better.
Britain has an urban-rural 4G schism. This is what it looks like
Arriving late has some advantages: it means being able to skip older, slower generations of networking gear, and investing in the latest technology. But it does means coverage may take time to catch up.
Community based Open Cloud network beats the NBN on cost, quality and TTM
Fiber in the ground at half the price
Micro excavation to get fiber fast, and lots of it, into the ground at half the price!
https://www.tu.no/artikler/raskere-fiber-til-halv-pris/236285
William builds a power-generating windmill from junk parts, transforming his life and catapulting him onto the world stage.
With only a library book as his guide, 14-year-old William Kamkwamba builds a windmill in his Malawian village that changes his life forever. Using junk parts and an inexhaustible imagination, he harnesses enough energy to power a generator that saves his family from famine and resuscitates his dying farming community.
http://williamandthewindmill.com/