Melcombe Bingham Case Study

Melcombe Bingham is a rural area of Dorset that is quite some distance from the cabinet that serves it, which meant they were experiencing extremely slow speeds and unreliable broadband connection. Wessex Internet installed our equipment on a mast on Henning Hill, to offer a solution to this.

Melcombe Bingham is a picturesque and historic village nestled in the heart of Dorset, surrounded by chalk hills of the Dorset Downs.

The Problem

Melcombe Bingham is very rural and is the maximum distance away from any BT exchange. High-speed internet access is not expected to arrive there, even with the rural roll out project from BT Openreach. Therefore the line quality was poor and they had been receiving speeds of less than 0.5Mb/s. The problem was how to achieve high speed broadband distribution to such a rural community.

Our Solution

After receiving a number of registrations of interest on our website from frustrated residents, Wessex Internet began making plans to expand our service into Melcombe Bingham. After negotiations with land-owners, we were given permission to erect a mast on Henning Hill. It was a fairly standard telegraph pole with a tranceiving dish pointing back to our Bulbarrow mast and a sector pointing towards Melcombe Bingham, Higher Melcombe, Lower Ansty and Higher Ansty.

The Result

We are now able to serve an area of rural Dorset where residents were previously receiving speeds of less than 0.5Mb/s. Now we can provide them with our 50Mb/s package. Speeds that for some residents are 100 times faster than they were previously receiving. As Melcombe Bingham is so far from the cabinet that serves it, and is not included in the rural roll out project, it is likely that even if or when BT upgrade it, residents will still not benefit from fast internet speeds. Wessex Internet have provided a solution to this so that residents now have the choice to use a local company delivering superfast broadband proven across the Blackmore Vale.

Robert Innes, one of the first to be installed, told us, “I would like to congratulate you on bringing at last a proper internet service to our village. Everyone that I speak to is delighted that at long last we can join in with services that were just not possible before.”

These faster speeds mean that for the first time, residents of the village are able to work from home. Vicki Lovegrove explains, “Having superfast internet in rural Dorset is amazing. It’s really noticeable when surfing the web, as pages load much more quickly. Plus it’s definitely more reliable and faster for work internet-based applications. For once we’re not being left behind! ”We have since had to add another sector as we were at capacity with the first! All this infrastructure now serves an impressive 59 properties and can serve 74% of the properties across the 4 communities.