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You are here because at least one person in your street, estate, village or town cannot get a decent broadband connection. You are not alone. The recent broadband Notspot survey, organised by Digital Dales, ABC and CBN, has found well over 1550 individuals representing thousands of wannabe broadband consumers.
You have probably exhausted every route to solving the problem - Ofcom, BT, local council, regional development agency etc etc.
You think it must be easy enough to do it yourself, because you have found links all over the Web to others who have managed to do so.
CAN in a Box was an idea started in around 2001 at the Digital Dales broadband events held firstly across the north of England (and attended by people from as far afield as Cornwall, Oxfordshire and Scotland), and then at the DD/ABC events which were larger scale events held in London, Yorkshire and Scotland, and within CBN -the Community Broadband Network - the 'child' of the Association of Broadband Communities started by the Access to Broadband Campaign and Digital Dales.
A CAN is a Community Access Network ie a broadband network open to all those within a geographical community. These include streets, housing estates, villages, caravan parks, market towns, and even entire counties.
The majority of them have been built with very little money, huge community enthusiasm, and determination.
There have also been far too many instances of failure because building and running a network is not an easy task. However, we have all learnt from those failures, especially when the recurrence of telco involvement in a CAN's demise keeps cropping up to make many of us ever more determined to succeed.
The CAN in a Box idea is that we can help you create your own CAN by giving you access to the hard-learned lessons, what not to do, what technology to consider, the surrounding issues, the finances, and much more - all in a box. Why reinvent the wheel when so many others have already done the legwork for you? Even though the technology is fast-moving, the majority of concerns with a CAN are immutable, they do not change, and much of the learning comes not from wireless networks, but from community regeneration, sound business sense, and management lessons that many already know.
Telcos (the companies who run telecommunications - internet, phones, mobiles etc - do not like trespassers on their patch. However, whilst there is a continual degradation of service so they can aim at profits, always at the expense of the consumers, they have to face the competition inevitable from such a course of action.
If you want to start a CAN, we suggest you start reading here in the Can in a Box section. It is not a short journey to success, nor a get rich quick scheme, but as a consumer, and presumably the member of a community, you owe it to yourself to at least consider the options.
Why pay your hard-earned money to a fat cat telco, when that money could be being respent in your community???
We recommend you buy the book
JFDI Community Broadband: Wennington to start with, as it shows the benefits of doing this type of project for yourself, your community, local businesses, children, families etc. There are full case studies showing savings to local businesses and individuals, details of the technologies used, the funding sought, and the problems and successes during the project which in 2007 is happily running to serve over 50 people with a broadband connection at a competitive price and faster than BT et al could offer, even in 2007, to a rural area of Lancashire.
You have probably exhausted every route to solving the problem - Ofcom, BT, local council, regional development agency etc etc.
You think it must be easy enough to do it yourself, because you have found links all over the Web to others who have managed to do so.
CAN in a Box was an idea started in around 2001 at the Digital Dales broadband events held firstly across the north of England (and attended by people from as far afield as Cornwall, Oxfordshire and Scotland), and then at the DD/ABC events which were larger scale events held in London, Yorkshire and Scotland, and within CBN -the Community Broadband Network - the 'child' of the Association of Broadband Communities started by the Access to Broadband Campaign and Digital Dales.
A CAN is a Community Access Network ie a broadband network open to all those within a geographical community. These include streets, housing estates, villages, caravan parks, market towns, and even entire counties.
The majority of them have been built with very little money, huge community enthusiasm, and determination.
There have also been far too many instances of failure because building and running a network is not an easy task. However, we have all learnt from those failures, especially when the recurrence of telco involvement in a CAN's demise keeps cropping up to make many of us ever more determined to succeed.
The CAN in a Box idea is that we can help you create your own CAN by giving you access to the hard-learned lessons, what not to do, what technology to consider, the surrounding issues, the finances, and much more - all in a box. Why reinvent the wheel when so many others have already done the legwork for you? Even though the technology is fast-moving, the majority of concerns with a CAN are immutable, they do not change, and much of the learning comes not from wireless networks, but from community regeneration, sound business sense, and management lessons that many already know.
Telcos (the companies who run telecommunications - internet, phones, mobiles etc - do not like trespassers on their patch. However, whilst there is a continual degradation of service so they can aim at profits, always at the expense of the consumers, they have to face the competition inevitable from such a course of action.
If you want to start a CAN, we suggest you start reading here in the Can in a Box section. It is not a short journey to success, nor a get rich quick scheme, but as a consumer, and presumably the member of a community, you owe it to yourself to at least consider the options.
Why pay your hard-earned money to a fat cat telco, when that money could be being respent in your community???
JFDI Community Broadband: Wennington to start with, as it shows the benefits of doing this type of project for yourself, your community, local businesses, children, families etc. There are full case studies showing savings to local businesses and individuals, details of the technologies used, the funding sought, and the problems and successes during the project which in 2007 is happily running to serve over 50 people with a broadband connection at a competitive price and faster than BT et al could offer, even in 2007, to a rural area of Lancashire.
