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Rural Wray to stream village cricket match via wireless broadband network
The game will take place on Easter Monday and is believed to be the first time a village cricket match has been streamed live.
The village of Wray, located north-east of Lancaster, is set to stage the spectacle on Easter Monday (April 25th 2011). It will feature a clash between Wray and a Rest of the World XI, organised as part of the annual Scarecrow Festival.
In order to broadcast the clash via the web, the organisers of the initiative will take advantage of the 30Mbps symmetrical broadband connection that has been extended to the village by Lancaster University.
John Popham, the organiser of the plan, explained the event had come about as a result of two conversations with friends on Twitter - one expressing his desire to keep up with his local cricket team via the social media site and the other discussing the testing of Wray's broadband network.
The comments led Mr Popham to look into the possibility of meeting both goals by setting up the live link.
Since announcing the plan, media solutions firm Aquila TV has agreed to act as the broadcast partner, although some coverage will be shot using a standard webcam to demonstrate that the live streaming can be achieved without shelling out large sums of money.
"It's a bit of fun, but it has a serious purpose too," Mr Popham explained.
"The serious side is to demonstrate that it can be done, it is possible to live-broadcast events like this using relatively cheap equipment and a good internet connection.
"I think this is going to be big."
Villagers in Wray had been unsuccessfully campaigning to bring broadband to their community for some time, until Lancaster University utilised Mesh technology to bring wireless services to the area back in late 2004.
Researchers from a number of external groups - including the BBC - have worked with locals to investigate the potentially life-changing benefits of broadband.