Village Networks Brings Broadband to Buckinghamshire

Specializing in rural broadband in the United Kingdom, Village Networks delivers point-to-point wireless connections to customers in Buckinghamshire. With over 700 customers and experiencing rapid customer growth, the rural provider needed to upgrade their network to handle the ever-increasing demands. Village Networks decided to upgrade the 100 Mbps broadband line supplying their existing network with a 200 Mbps fibre service, necessitating an equipment upgrade for the wireless link that they manage. The company chose the Mimosa B5 backhaul radios for the new link.

“We selected Mimosa equipment for our network due to the GPS synchronization feature which allows the collocation of back-to-back Mimosa links,” said Ross Firth, Technical Director at Village Networks. “Our main core node sends service to eight different villages, resulting in a very congested 5 GHz network. The collocation has helped us to reduce interference and maximize channel width to enable maximum throughput. The spectrum analyzer has also helped us to establish better channels for our other aerials on that node.”

Prior to the installation of Mimosa backhaul radios, each customer on this section of their network was receiving on average 6 Mbps download speed to their property. The new Mimosa link now provides on average 20 Mbps to each property which has provided great customer feedback and satisfaction in these rural areas of the UK.

“With the Mimosa B5 backhaul radios installed, we were able to double the backhaul capacity after connecting to the new fibre optic source,” said Rob Lindsay, Operations Director at Village Networks. “With digital inclusion for rural areas being a particular priority for the UK Government, providing effective Internet links is very important to us.”

Village Networks is continuing to upgrade further parts of the main network to incorporate additional Mimosa radios in order to provide the best link possible for each customer.

“We really love the Mimosa equipment and the exceptional high performance it delivers”

“We really love the Mimosa equipment and the exceptional high performance it delivers,” said Rob. “Mimosa has been super to work with and they have really supported our UK operations.”

The company partnered with Invisinet WiFi solutions, a provider of internal Wi-Fi networking solutions, to upgrade the internal networks, ensuring that the Internet is available throughout properties and all devices connect seamlessly. Invisinet WiFi is a registered member of the Digital Inclusion Charter and supports customers with upgrades and connections.