A village has launched its own high-speed broadband company after raising £37,000 to create its own service.
Rutland Telecom was set up after the community in Lyddington, Rutland, Leicestershire, raised the cash in a bid to get themselves faster broadband speeds than they could get from BT.
The system is expected to create a 40Mbps service, averaging at 25Mbps - the UK average is around 3.2Mbps.
The company said it will be the first time residents will be able to watch streaming HD TV, BBC iPlayer and other digital online services.
The system, said to be a significant milestone in UK telecomms history, delivers the service from a street cabinet using a process called subloop unbundling.
It has seen villagers transferred from a BT to a Rutland Telecom-owned street cabinet, which means their voice and data services are delivered from what is effectively a new village mini-telephone exchange.
Rutland Telecom managing director Dr David Lewis said: "We found that by exploiting telecoms legislation we could utilise parts of BT's existing infrastructure and supply next generation broadband services via community funded projects.
"Rutland Telecom is now delighted to have developed the first UK Fibre to the cabinet broadband offering in a rural location, bringing a unique service to an otherwise technologically-impoverished community.
"Investing in high speed broadband could be the key to stimulating rural economies everywhere so people can remain in the countryside to live and work."
It is believed the project will set a precedent across the UK and comes in the same month it was announced that a new £100 million super-fast broadband network is set to be built in Cornwall in an effort to boost the area's economy.
