Non-profit community benefit society Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN) – which has its beginnings in the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University - has recently released a free, community-led retrospective written by volunteers for the network covering the “early years” of the rural broadband Internet Service Provider (ISP).

The story of B4RN can be traced back more than 20 years to the village of Wray, Lancashire, when several villagers, frustrated by the lack of internet connectivity available on their farms and surrounding rural community, contacted Professor Nick Race in the quest for a solution. From there spawned the “Wray Living Lab” and after several years of development, Professor Race, the group from the village, and the team at Lancaster had established a reliable and fast wireless network across the village, giving the rural community vital and consistent access to the internet. The group went on to build the network out to an adjacent area using the skills they had learned.

Since then, B4RN has grown into the established not-for profit it is today, connecting over 15000 remote properties across the North West (and beyond) to the internet, laying some 8 million metres of fibre cable, and becoming a multi-million-pound community enterprise. B4RN – The Early Years is an 800-page book written by the B4RN community that lays out its story, providing an insight into the lives that B4RN has helped to transform and paying homage to the key people and places that formulated B4RN’s humble origins. The book is a branching, non-linear narrative, comprising of photographs from significant moments in B4RN’s history, oral accounts and a plethora of links to videos and websites from B4RN’s past. It provides an all-encompassing insight into an initiative that has been the lifework of so many within the community.

One of the co-founders of B4RN, Chris Condor, said: “B4RN was born out of desperation, as even dial-up didn't work on our farms and businesses! The only help we received in the early years was from Professor Race and his team at Lancaster University, who turned us into white mice in their Living Lab, with their students and academics in the School of Computing and Communications helping us to build a wireless mesh network and teaching us how to run it. Once online, we met other kindred spirits, and once Barry Forde (who became our CEO) joined us, his vision led the way to what has become one of the best rural fibre gigabit networks in the world. The book is a labour of love, written by our dedicated volunteers and founders who wanted to immortalise B4RN’s story.”

Professor Race added: “B4RN is a fantastic example of how research can have a real, tangible impact and how we, as academics, can work alongside communities to bring about meaningful change. It has been wonderful to watch B4RN grow from strength to strength both regionally and nationally, and the publication of B4RN – The Early Years signifies the immense importance of the initiative to the community. It has been an honour to be a part of B4RN’s history, and I look forward to watching its future unfold.”