Broadband from the bell tower: the church that became an internet hub

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/29/broadband-bell-tower-st-andrews-church-paull

Version 0 of 1.

It was 4am on Thursday when Paull Taylor turned on BBC News to be greeted with a BT spokesman making grand promises about superfast broadband in rural areas. The telecoms man was insisting his firm had not "exploited" £1.2bn of public funds – an accusation made by the Public Accounts Committee this week – and promising that most country-dwelling Britons would receive 2MB broadband by 2015. Despite the early hour, the 20-year-old electrician was lucid enough to provide a pithy response:

"Bollocks. Absolute bollocks. He said the process was 'transparent'. 'Thoroughly transparent'. And yet we ask them whether they're going to get a cable to our house and they reply saying 'oh, we can't tell you'. Anyway, two megs is rubbish. Absolutely naff. Meaningless. You can't do anything with two megs."

Paull and his family live by a creek in the reclaimed marshland of Holderness, East Yorkshire, 10 miles south-east of Hull and six miles away from a main road. "No way are they going to dig a trench to lay fibre optic cable to our house, but they won't admit it," said Paull, as his dad, Simon, nodded enthusiastic agreement. "East Riding council have just given BT £14m to improve broadband provision in our area, but we understand we won't see any of that," said Simon, a moustachioed eccentric with bright eyes and big ideas.

Luckily, the Taylors predicted this at least a year ago and decided to take matters into their own hands. Fed up with waiting 20 minutes to download any email with an attachment, and cheesed off with not being able to stream the BBC's iPlayer, Paull and his dad came up with an idea.

They bought an off-the-shelf radio transmitter and receiver for about £80 and, along with a neighbour, persuaded St Andrew's, their local church in the village of Paull (where the young man got the unusual spelling of his name), to let them install the equipment on top of the bell tower.

After tapping into a nearby fibre optic cable, they were able to equip the church with a galloping internet connection. The church soon exploited this to turn their ad-hoc coffee shop into a cyber cafe. Suddenly 100 people were coming through the church doors each weekend, compared to perhaps 10 (on a good day) sitting through the Sunday sermon. "We have to find new ways to make ourselves relevant in this day and age if we want to stay open," said one church member.

Thus began the not-for-profit Hubb project. "Hubb because our postcode begins HU, and also because we want the church to become the hub of the community," explained Simon, not a God-fearing man himself.

The enterprising Hubb trio, all unpaid volunteers, made leaflets to give to parishioners proclaiming: "Let there be wifi!" (An earlier draft was deemed too edgy, declaring: "And on the eighth day God made broadband – and it was fast".) A pilot began while the men waited for planning permission from the diocese for the equipment to be installed permanently on the roof.

A rudimentary broadband network began to take shape as locals agreed to have wireless radio equipment attached to their chimney breasts which received signal from St Andrew's. They were delighted with the results – especially the chap who'd bought a £1,000 smart TV two years earlier which was all but useless until the Taylors came along. Two weeks ago, planning permission was granted and last Saturday the service went public.

Debbie and Lynne Easton, living in the nearby hamlet of Sunk Island, signed up straight away. They claim Talk Talk used to charge them £20 a month for a broadband connection which only worked between 8.15am and 8.45am – if they were lucky. "We tried a dongle," said Lynne, "but we could only get that to work occasionally, by sticking stuff to the windows, putting one leg in the air and if the wind was blowing the right way from Grimsby." They paid the Hubb team £50 set-up costs and say they are happy to fork out £25 a month for reliable broadband which enables the family to Skype friends in Canada and stream music and video.

News of the Taylors' technical wizardry has spread 17 miles south-east from Paull to the village of Easington, where Simon on Friday climbed the vertiginous steps of a pigeon poo-encrusted church tower to fit radio equipment in another pilot scheme. This pretty coastal settlement is home to some of the most high-tech and fiercely guarded technology in the country, at the Easington gas terminal, which collects gas via the North Sea pipeline. Pylons provide the site with tip-top communication facilities, which somehow do not extend to the village, where most locals can't get a mobile signal, let alone decent broadband provision. "Very frustrating," said Ian Rutter, warden of the All Saints church, who is hoping the Hubb set-up can be replicated in his parish.

It's a problem replicated all over the less populated parts of the country, said Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale in Cumbria: "Every day I get a phone call or a letter from a constituent who is dealing with internet access that is non-existent. It makes it difficult for people to access services or run a business. Decent broadband is key to creating more well paid jobs and more investment and at the moment BT and the government's broadband roll out is failing rural areas. Even many of those areas that are supposedly getting support are only going to get 2MBps download speed and less than 1MBps upload – this is completely inadequate; we need broadband infrastructure that is future proof, not a sticking plaster."

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.