The Wennington book

Read all about how the community wireless broadband network in Wennington, Lancashire has changed the lives of the businesses and individuals there. Also, how the network was funded, designed, installed, and continues to operate as a sustainable model one year on.


Preview and buy the book - JFDI Community Broadband

case studies in action

Click here to see real life people who appreciate the benefits of a broadband connection

The nurse

Carl is a senior nursing officer in charge of policy decisions for the wards. Since he got a broadband connection via a community wireless network he has been able to work from home when he needs some peace to think things through. He says this saves him an hours travelling time and for some tasks it is more productive working in a quiet rural location than his busy office. These days are scheduled to fit in with family life such as waiting for the gas man to call etc. It saves him taking days off as annual leave. He can work from home if one of the children are ill, which saves him calling to say he can't go to work, as he can continue working from home. He also uses the broadband connection to do research at night from home, which saves valuable time whilst on the ward. Before he got broadband he used to stay late at the hospital to do this, which also had an impact on his home life.

He worked out that over a 12 month period the added value would equate to one tenth of his salary. Therefore if 9 others in his hospital could do the same the equivalent of another nurse manager's wages would be available in the NHS trust's budget.

Keeping In Touch

Judith and Graham live in a beautiful country house in the wilds of Lancashire. When they joined a wireless network and finally got a broadband connection they were quick to exploit its benefits.

Judith has used it to book low cost flights to their holiday home in Menorca, some as cheap as £19. She uses it for online shopping and voip calls to her brothers at the other side of the world. Googletalk has been an instant success.

Graham uses it to connect to his office and work from home when possible. This saves many hours and miles of travelling. Quite often they are snowed in, but it is no longer a worry as he can keep his finger on the pulse of his business from home.

Judith has always written lots of letters to her sons at boarding school, and still does, but finds that they respond better to emails. They were using quite a lot of text messages and mobile calls to keep in touch but since they got broadband they have found that email and googletalk do a much better job and at a fraction of the price. This means that although they are far apart they can keep in touch every day.

Kids skypin'

Whilst on my recent trip to Bolivia, I spent a happy hour in a cybercafe listening to the tunes my twins could play on their guitar, hearing all about their latest exploits and seeing for myself the disastrous state of the sitting room! Impossible without broadband to be that close to my domestic life and my kids whilst so far away at a cost of less than 1 dollar for an hour on what is essentially a video phone.

The shop keeper

Every Sunday, Margaret a rural shop owner and sub post mistress, took her large cumbersome van to the cash and carry to restock the shop - a round trip of 22 miles, and a major disruption to the only day off in her week.

Now, with broadband, during the week, Margaret can use the spare moments when there is no-one in the shop to build her order on the cash and carry website. She can pick the beans, bread etc from virtual shelves in the cash and carry, and on Friday she submits her order online. The cash and carry inform her if anything is out of stock, and she can choose a different brand or a different item which is in stock.

On Monday morning, a delivery van arrives at her shop and unloads all her purchases. She now spends Sunday mornings having a well-deserved lie-in!!