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Rural-focus internet provider B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North), which is a community built and supported network that has so far deployed their 10Gbps full fibre (FTTP) lines to cover 32,000 rural premises in England (up from 30k in Apr 2025), has now grown its customer base to 15,700 (up from 15k in Sept 2025).
B4RN is a registered Community Benefit Society, which means they can’t be bought by a commercial operator and profits must go back into the community. The operator has already expanded their full fibre network to cover various remote rural parts of Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Northumberland, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Yorkshire, Northumberland and County Durham – often with the direct help of local volunteers (building and shares).
The latest progress has been shared as part of an update to bondholders reflecting on the impact of B4RN’s 2019 Triodos investment bond and the long-term growth achieved across its rural network since then. As part of that the bank’s corporate finance team structured and raised a £3.3m bond, which helped B4RN scale its network. This was often also used to underpin their applications to the government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS).
The provider originally says they set out plans to connect an additional 9,700 properties across 28 communities through its 2019 bond raise. Since then, B4RN says they’ve “significantly exceeded those ambitions” while also securing more than £20m in Government Project Gigabit funding.
Since 2019, B4RN has also:
- Increased its Net Book Value of network build from approximately £8m to around £35m
- Achieved an average take-up rate of 50% across its network
- Expanded its workforce from around 27 employees to more than 80
- Connected more than 309 community assets free of charge, including schools, village halls, places of worship and community-owned facilities
- Received seven industry awards recognising both its fibre deployment and community-led delivery model
Tom Rigg, CEO of B4RN, said:
“When we set out our ambitions in 2019, we knew there was enormous untapped potential within rural communities, but what has been achieved by our very own volunteers and communities since then has exceeded even our own expectations.
Together with our volunteers, champions, landowners, and customers we’ve built infrastructure that is delivering long-term economic and social value in areas that have historically been overlooked by traditional investment models.
We’ve always believed that if communities and investors take a long-term view together, rural infrastructure can be both sustainable and transformational. The progress we’ve made since 2019 is proof of that.
There’s been a lot of discussion across the market about the challenges of rural connectivity and infrastructure delivery. What our model demonstrates is that when communities are genuinely involved, and when investment is aligned to long-term outcomes, sustainable growth is absolutely achievable.”
Despite having a relatively small premises passed count, it’s worth noting that B4RN’s physical fibre network is geographically still quite large due to the wide open remote rural areas they tend to serve.