Project brings fast broadband to North Yorkshire Moors communities

School in Gillamoor to beam 6Mbit/s broadband to homes and firms within a nine-mile radius

Some 150 homes and businesses in a remote area of the North Yorkshire Moors will get access to high-speed broadband following the launch of a community project headed up by NYnet.

NYnet, a commercial venture offering services to the public and private sectors, joined forces with Gillamoor School, which will act as a hub providing broadband services to homes and businesses within a nine mile radius.

The services will be beamed wirelessly in three directions by service provider Moorsweb and LN Communications.

The communities of Farndale, Blakey, Bransdale, Rudland, Beadlam Rigg and East Moors previously had very limited or non-existent internet connections, and the scheme hopes to reverse the trend of urban migration.

NYnet is led by North Yorkshire County Council and is partnered with BT, who deliver and monitor the network.

It is expected that users will be able to access speeds of up to 6Mbit/s, with the potential to increase to 10Mbit/s in the future.

"North Yorkshire is England's largest county and has some of the most remote villages in the country. Following a pilot in Newton on Rawcliffe, Moorsweb is the second project in a series of community broadband initiatives that NYnet plans to introduce in rural villages throughout North Yorkshire in 2011," said David Cullen, chief executive of NYnet.

The next phase of the scheme will add Rosedale to the backbone fibre connection, and look into whether other communities such as Hutton-le-Hole can be incorporated.

"We are a very remote community, and conventional telephone line broadband simply doesn't exist this far from the telephone exchange, and we often suffer from severe weather, which makes us even more isolated. The new connection acts as a line out to the rest of the world," said Barry Sunley, project manager for Moorsweb.