Broadband in villages
Broadband providers like to boast about their coverage withing UK, the trust is that ofcome says quite a portion of the UK population either have no broadband at all or have very slow broadband. Its not too bad in cities but in villages, its another matter as illustrated in an article on BBC website, excerpts of the article follows. Before the excerpts, if you are shopping for broadband you can compare broadband at various websites and conduct broadband speed test and compare prices at various websites.
Cumbria is a microcosm of counties across the UK, many of which still have some “notspot” areas – defined as places that have no or below two megabits per second broadband.
Lindsey Annison has been campaigning for faster online connections for her rural community in Cumbria for over 20 years.
She is one of an estimated 15% of the UK population who cannot get speeds above 2Mbps.
The problem, a common one for rural communities, is that her village is just too far away from its local telephone exchange to offer the kind of speeds the government has pledged everyone will have by 2012.
“On a really good day I can get a 1Mbps connection but you can’t do anything with it. I can’t use Skype for example,” she said.
The fact she can achieve even this is down to help she has got from a firm which specialises in getting more broadband out of lines that are a long way from telephone exchanges.
“Outlying farms can’t get anything,” she said.
Ofcom estimates that 15% of the population cannot get broadband above 2Mbps.
In Northern Ireland nearly a third of homes can’t get 2Mbps and in Scotland over a quarter languish on slow speeds.
Cumbria has by no means been bypassed by the digital revolution. Last year the North West regional development agency spent £19m on a county-wide wireless network and running fibre to a deprived estate near Carlisle.
But, according to Ms Annison, it has been a failure.
“It hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference. I haven’t found anyone in Cumbria who is getting a connection off of that wireless network,” she said.
This is disputed by the North West Development Agency (NWDA), which was responsible for laying the network.
It said that the network had benefitted around 40,000 businesses in the area as well as enabling consumers.
“Before, only 40% of Cumbria could get half a meg of broadband but now 96% can. People can get significantly better access, up to 2Mb in some instances,” said Phil Southward of the NWDA.
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