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Regional publisher to help church roll out broadband service

Jeff Henry

A regional publisher has formed a partnership with a church diocese to help boost the rollout of its rural broadband service.

Archant has launched a commercial partnership with the Diocese of Norwich, which set up WiSpire four years ago to tackle slow internet speeds using church towers to house wireless broadband transmitters.

Under the deal, Archant will provide investment, infrastructure, commercial strategy and marketing services to WiSpire.

The move will also see Archant chief executive Jeff Henry, pictured left, and chairman Simon Bax join the WiSpire board with immediate effect.

Archant will provide services to WiSpire, including marketing support across its newspaper titles and local TV station, along with office space and back office services.

Jeff said: “We have a powerful opportunity to build on the trust our business has with our local communities in dynamic and innovative ways.

“We will bring our marketing talent, our commercial acumen and our understanding of the community to WiSpire with the goal to accelerate rural broadband growth.

“This is the first of a number of partnerships that present new revenue opportunities for our business, beyond the traditional media business model.
“We want to build successful initiatives with like-minded businesses and organisations that play important roles at the heart of our community.”

Following the announcement, WiSpire plans to expand its service in its current locations, then extend its geographic footprint.

The Lord Bishop of Norwich, The Rt Revd Graham James, said: “WiSpire is a great concept which has worked well, using community buildings – our churches – to benefit all people in the community with speed of access to the internet, increasingly needed by us all.

“WiSpire needs further development and I’m delighted that Archant see the potential for WiSpire in the years to come.”

The Diocese of Norwich set up WiSpire in 2011 to provide broadband services to parts of Norfolk and North Suffolk and supporters of the initiative include Lord Lloyd-Webber.

An image showing how WiSpire works by transmitting broadband through church spires.

An image showing how WiSpire works by transmitting broadband through church spires.

3 comments

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  • July 23, 2015 at 10:42 am
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    Good to see some positive, active local involvement in the community.

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  • July 23, 2015 at 7:33 pm
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    Good to see that Jeff Henry has risen again, I guess the news of his death in the Archant owned Hunts Post was a mistake.Looking forward to him reserecting the fortune of Archant.

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  • July 24, 2015 at 7:16 am
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    “Archant will provide services to WiSpire, including marketing support across its newspaper titles and local TV station, along with office space and back office services”

    So that’s yet more space filler free adverts to fill up all the papers and a few home made adverts on mustard TV then?
    Good deal Jeff , nice one

    There’s certainly plenty of spare office space with the amount of staff who have jumped ship or due to downsizing and the journos and admin folk won’t mind a bit more added to their workloads with this ‘ back office support’ I’m sure.
    Exciting times for the excitingly excited me self proclaimed ‘TopTeamNorwich’
    Cracking!

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