A few summers ago everybody in the village where I live were given the option of getting internet access, but at the time, it wasn't a case of a switch getting flicked.

It involved lots of hard work and everyone that wanted a fiber internet connection had to quite literally dig the ditches and lay the fiber throughout the village and up to their house, to get it.

Everyone got involved and without everyone doing that we wouldn't have internet offering the type of quality we have today.

Now, we didn't live here then and you know I would have done anything to get out of the physical side of things, but you have to take your hat off to everyone involved in getting it done and everyone that went out and got their hands dirty, because it literally was everyone and it literally has changed how people live and work.

So, everyone got a 10Mbit internet connection and everyone was happy to pay Skellefteå Kraft the money for that service. Especially today, because if you want you can also get your phone and television from those very same cables.

That was six years ago but about a year or so ago Skellefteå Kraft moved our service over to a company called Alltele. Alltele became the service provider and Skellefteå Kraft just owned the network. Back in April this year we got a call from Alltele offering us a 100Mbit connection in September and I for one, jumped at the chance.

September came and I then found out that there would be six other providers that we could pick from because Skellefteå Kraft, the original company we had and who the community had dug the ditches for, were no longer allowed to act as an ISP as there was an issue or something to do with having a monopoly on the service, so instead, we now had seven companies reselling the Skellefteå Kraft service instead, over the cables put down by the community.

That got me thinking; why should we pay a company that didn´t come to our village to help with the digging. Why should we pay them and make them money when if we set up our own internet service provider, we could charge the same and put the profits back into the village.

So, I started making some telephone calls. First, I spoke with the company that own the network (Skellefteå Kraft) as they basically say yes or no to someone selling on their network; they liked it (although they have not yet said yes, but we hope they will when we submit our paper work).

I spoke with a large local employer and they liked it (the head of IT at that company was also the driving force behind the fiber project for the village). I spoke with a local IT firm to ask for a server and they kindly donated it (for our website, going live on Tuesday) and I spoke with a very well respected and sort of local to us, web development firm looking for support and they signed up, wanting to know how they could help.

Then, we hit a snag. Skellefteå Kraft said we couldn´t run this just for our village and if we were to be accepted as an ISP we would have to run it for the entire region. The whole region has about 20,000 connections and approximately 13,000 active customers. It got a bit scary at this stage and I almost walked away from it.

Positive Social Change

But before walking away, I emailed someone I know at Google in California and he really liked the concept of running an ISP for the community and giving the profits back to the people that use the service. He then forwarded the idea to someone at Google in Sweden so we had a local contact and they have offered us help and even put us in touch with more people that can help.

I then spoke to someone at Microsoft in Sweden who also liked it and they also want to support the project and when those two companies got behind the idea in a positive way, it sort of gave me the energy to pursue the idea further.

The concept was a simple one. We offer the exact same service at a slightly lower price than what they are currently paying and at the end of the year we give back the profits the business makes back to the customers, or to be more precise, back to the village, suburb or community that uses it as a whole, to be used for something positive.

For example, if we had 1,000 customers and made a profit of 500,000 Kr, then our village with 100 connections would be given 50,000 Kr. It might not sound like much, but 50,000 Kr goes a long way when you consider it might be that 5,000 Kr is needed for football shirts for the village under 8's football team or that 10,000 Kr would pay for a new slide in the park. Surely it is an easy decision to make, especially if you are going to see the return in the community you live.

To take the example a little further, if the village next door to us signed up and say they had 400 customers, they would make 200,000 Kr. Basically, it is running a business to make as much money as possible but then to give it all away - back to the community where the customer lives.

The other option would be to just reduce the cost of the service and not make any profit for the business but if the customer wants to buy solely on cost there are quite a few of the other seven providers already selling at a loss to buy the business and we don't like the idea of suggesting a service is actually cheaper than it will end up being. We want to be quite clear with our pricing and quite clear with the reasons the business operates.

I started calling the idea positive social change and started to get a bit of interest, so I kept running with it.

All Change at Skellefteå Kraft

The idea of setting up an ISP was still fairly daunting (still is today), even after having the likes of Google and Microsoft offer help, so I decided to talk to one of the existing seven providers.

Initially and even now, I don´t think they like the idea of a new ISP starting up with the aim of giving the money back to the communities that use it, mostly it's a competitor for them and one with a unique selling point that on the face of it works, but I had to speak to them, because they had the technology, they were already providing the service and maybe they could help.

While I think they are not entirely comfortable with the possibility of added competition, I do know they think the idea is a good one. They know that an idea like this can be really positive for communities up here in Northern Sweden.

So, after speaking with them, we sort of came to an agreement that they would help. Seeing as they had already done everything, it might have turned out to be just a case of replicating the system and putting it on a couple of new servers and changing a file names, but then things changed with Skellefteå Kraft and I never really followed up the white label type solution, although we are still talking to them and they're a fantastic company.

To the change. When I first started out with my telephone calls, we were told that we couldn´t just run this 'just for our village', but we found out last week that it might be possible to run it like that in the future, although there is no set date as to when the technology might be ready to provide location specific services, but it does mean we might be able to operate just for us, instead of having to set up an ISP for the whole network.

Tis all about the phases

So, if we were to find out this week or next week or sometime in the near future that we knew for sure this feature was going to be made available by Skellefteå Kraft, we could start as a reseller for one of the existing providers and that would be pretty easy to do, as long as Skellefteå Kraft said we could. You see, if we are going to have to set up as an ISP 'just for our village' we might as well set one up for the entire network - reselling is ideal for us and setting it up to work for our village could prove a valuable model that others could use.

I am calling the reselling stage 'phase one' and if everyone in the village were to sign up, I fancy we could make the 50,000 Kr in year one quite easily as the difference for our 10Mbit service from cheapest to most expensive is 131 Kr a month (cheapest is 169 Kr and most expensive is 300 Kr).

Phase two is very much about setting up an ISP and if Skellefteå Kraft say we can't become a reseller we have to move straight to phase two, but doing so in such a manner that it is easy for other communities to also sign up to what we offer and also make money for themselves, rather than give it to a company that is really only adding an extra layer of cost to the customer, albeit by providing the support that is no longer available through Skellefteå Kraft.

Phase two could very much become phase one if we find Skellefteå Kraft do say we can not do it or is; a. not going to happen or b. is going to happen sometime to far in the future.

Until we know from Skellefteå Kraft, we have to be working towards phase two and we have been told, if we are accepted onto the network as an ISP, that will be in the Spring next year, so either way, in April, May or June, if we continue to get the support, we could have our own ISP making money for own village.

Bygdsiljum First

So, on Tuesday, our website will go live. It will detail what we are trying to do, when we hope to be able to go live with phase one and phase two and what our costs will be to use the service.

We will also detail an extra phase, which will mostly focus on other communities using the service for their own need and how easy it will be to get up and running.

We will also list all the costs involved in running the business, in phase one and phase two and how much money each phase should generate for our village and potentially other villages that want to sign up and start making money for their communities too.

The target is to make 500,000 Kr over ten years for my village and we only have 100 potential customers. If we were to get 2,000 customers from seven or eight more small communities, we will be able to give back an estimated 10,000,00 Kr over 10 years and that type of money can be used to make some real positive changes.

So, Bygdsiljum First begins here, but for real on Tuesday here. If you can offer support in anyway, have experience in setting up an ISP or know the inner workings of Skellefteå Kraft, please feel free to get in contact, as we have a long road and no doubt a tough one ahead.

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