The Scottish village of Drymen has recently upgraded to Broadband, installing a LocustWorld wireless mesh, delivering high speed internet to homes and businesses throughout the village. Starting in early January 2004, within a month the mesh has grown to 7 nodes, supporting 23 subscribers. New users are continuing to join the network, growing steadily as local people become more aware of the value that the service offers, and the benefits of an always on broadband internet connection.
Initially ten local people got together and committed to founding the service, however now that it is up and running many other local people are keen to sign up. The Drymen mesh was installed by Joel Smith, of Dales IT, who has a long track record of successful mesh installations under his belt. "The Drymen mesh presented some potential challenges for us at the outset, with trees, hills and some far flung users in remote locations. In fact the installation went in very sweetly, and it's a great case example for other villages to follow. Having strong support locally is a vital ingredient for installing a mesh on this scale.", says Joel. Business users get grant support from Scottish Enterprise, who will contribute to their set-up costs with one off grants, helping these businesses connect to the mesh too. Running as a cooperative local project, using volunteers for local technical and service support, the project has very low costs and can offer excellent value for the members. Local people funded the £7k set-up costs, which they expect to pay back in year two, or sooner as more users sign up. "I have found the Drymen Broadband Group service excellent", says Mike Newman, TV and multimedia producer. "It was simplicity itself to setup and delivers impressive upload and download times and complete reliability. Working in the media business I often need to send graphics material and files that used to take 10 or 20 minutes now go in seconds." The set-up costs of the Drymen mesh included the installation of the satellite internet connection and the mesh nodes that are located all around the village. The Aramiska satellite internet connection, LocustWorld Meshboxes and aerials were all provided by Dales IT. The satellite internet service costs around £250 a month, which makes up the major running cost of the service, using the mesh to link the village to the satellite service shares the cost and makes it an affordable option for each user. Domestic subscribers pay £20 a month, for their share of a 2 Megabit per second internet connection. Prices are fixed for the first two years, and the project plans to build up a surplus during that time, to use as a loyalty bonus for early subscribers, and to allow lower subscription costs thereafter. The Drymen Mesh shows how rapidly a local project can get together and install a self-supported broadband network, using the LocustWorld mesh to get excellent value and performance. Links:
Drymen Mesh Gallery
Visit Loch Lomond website
Undiscovered Scotland website
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