Church tower broadband in Herefordshire

Allpay is a Herefordshire company that's signed a deal with the Diocese of Hereford to broadcast broadband from church towers. You can read the full story here.

The basic idea is to use the mediaeval church infrastructure as somewhere to put the masts needed for the network and bring the internet to areas with poor coverage.

Of course I wasn't able to blog about this on Friday because I spent all day reporting from an area with little or no internet coverage. And not much of a mobile signal either but that's a story for another day.

I had several tweets and emails asking for more details. The company's website is here. But the gist is the service provides 2Mb for £20 a month. The more you pay the faster speed you have access to. You also need to pay for a receiver mast to be installed on your home.

Of the people I spoke to who had the system they seemed happy with it. Although one passer by did mention he thought the cost was rather high. I'd be interested to hear from other customers in the comments.

South Herefordshire has also been selected for a trial of superfast broadband by the Government as has Gloucestershire. Together with this scheme there are some very creative ideas on how to increase broadband access.

A quick word of praise for the Church of England too. Sticking a mast on an ancient building can involve an enormous amount of red tape. But what the Diocese of Hereford have done is create a broadband licence which streamlines the whole process. It's a nifty idea that may well be adopted by others.

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