Fibre optic builder and ISP B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North), which since 2011 have been working with community volunteers to roll out a 10Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of England, has confirmed that they will upgrade their core network to 400G in order to make it future-proof through 2030.
The provider, which is a registered Community Benefit Society that has already covered well over 20,000 premises, first began deploying their full fibre network to remote rural homes in Lancashire over a decade ago and they’ve since expanded out across parts of Cheshire, Cumbria, Northumberland, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Yorkshire.
In the case of their core network, B4RN has previously used equipment from Norwegian firm Smartoptics, and they intend to do so again to upgrade their entire backbone network. The project aims to support 400G in the rural core network with new Dark Fibre extending about 650km, creating a ring around the north of the UK between Manchester, Newcastle and Leeds.
Distances between nodes in the backbone network range from about 40 to 100km – typical of a rural operating environment and longer than many metro networks. Smartoptics open line systems, along with 10G and 400G optics, have been selected to future-proof the network through 2030.
Tom Rigg, COO of B4RN, said:
“Cost efficiency, quality and reliability were key decision criteria for us. Smartoptics products were the best option we could find, meeting these criteria brilliantly and effectively meeting our needs for everything from 10G to 400G.
We also appreciate the plug-and-play setup and ease of use. But as much as we like the products, our close relationship with Smartoptics is no less important. Smartoptics has been there for us as we continue to grow and bring greater connectivity to underserved communities.”
The announcement doesn’t state how long this upgrade will take to complete, although we can’t say that we’ve ever seen any complaints about poor speeds from B4RN’s customers and so this is clearly more about maintaining that quality in to the future.