Community broadband initiatives: what makes them successful and why?

Abstract

Although access to broadband has become a facility embedded in everyday life, many communities still have poor or no connectivity, especially in rural areas. The paper considers how some local communities have taken matters into their own hands and set up their own community broadband infrastructure in the UK. The paper examines four case study rural communities in terms of the organisation of broadband provision. It identifies common skills and resources that were necessary in order for these community broadband initiatives to be successful in the form of five capitals: human, technological, identity and financial.