IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Cybermoor network at Alston Moor in Cumbria is a community-owned venture that claims to have the highest penetration of broadband in any rural area in England.

The region is one of the most sparsely populated areas of England and was deemed non-viable when first-generation broadband was being deployed by BT - leading the community to set up its own wireless network, back in 2002.

Anna Bradley, Consumer Panel chair, said, "We already know that the economic case for next generation access will not stack up in some areas, and we can predict which areas that will be. So let's address these issues alongside commercial roll-out, not after it."

Working in partnership with MLL Telecom, BT will provide a managed radio wave network under the council's Next Generation Network (NGN) programme.

An information superhighway with speeds which, at 10Mb are at least five times faster than most domestic broadband services, is being used to boost communications among council staff and taxpayers.

Council chiefs are spending £42million on an e-government strategy' to integrate data, voice and video communication. It means someone with a complaint about, say, street lighting can lodge details online from a desktop computer or laptop.

The government is to review the future of the UK’s broadband infrastructure as part of plans to ensure the speedy rollout of super-high-speed networks.

The independent study, to be led by Francisco Caio, the former chief executive of Cable & Wireless, will report to chancellor Alistair Darling in the autumn.

People living and working in remote parts of the Scottish highlands are to receive broadband access, it was announced on 9 August 2005.

The Scottish Executive is part funding a broadband programme for the Cairngorms which covers some of the most remote and mountainous areas in the UK. Other organisations involved in the £30m programme include Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Scottish Enterprise, the EU Regional Development Fund (EDRF) and BT.

Basically, internet has become a great tool for the people to access information easily and efficiently, which means it has made public and other services more accessible to many more people, according to a Spokesperson for the Communications Consumer Panel (CCP).

These and other social and economic benefits should reach many homes and consumers by expanding the super-fast broadband networks across the country, the spokesperson has suggested.

The campaign - founded by a range of broadband organisations and champions of wider community interests - will lobby the Government to provide adequate and effective broadband access for the "Final Third" of the UK which currently lacks this vital infrastructure.

The campaign will focus on ensuring that all those in the Final Third will be able to access Government online services by 2012, and then facilitating the move towards next generation access.

A new report has challenged recent claims by Ofcom that rural areas have better broadband access than city areas.

Thinkbroadband, the UK's largest independent broadband information site, took speed readings from over 13,000 broadband customers and found that rural users suffer a significant shortfall in speeds compared to their city cousins.

The scheme aims to address the severe lack of sign-up to high-speed internet connections in the county despite the availability of broadband throughout Durham.

With a goal of around 140 broadband connections the project has surpassed its target and has the systems in place to allow it to continue until the entire county is hooked up.

Economy minister Arlene Foster launched the Northern Ireland Broadband Fund, which will provide support to businesses undertaking technology trials related to the rollout of high-speed broadband.

It is financed under the European Regional Development Fund Sustainable Competitiveness Programme 2007-13, and will have a particular focus on the delivery of broadband services to rural areas.

Broadband Television is an area of increasing interest and activity and a number of areas have recently launched local broadband TV services, including Glasgow and Doncaster.

The report shows that, for the first time, there is a greater proportion of households with broadband in the rural parts of the UK’s nations and regions than there are in urban areas. Across the UK as a whole, 59 per cent of households in rural areas now have broadband compared to 57 per cent of urban areas.

Results of a survey by thinkbroadband.com revealed Greater London tops the table, offering more of its users connections faster than 8Meg in the latter half of 2008.

In the survey, of 3,723 postcodes in the south west, the average download speed was found to be 3,192kbps (kilobytes per second), compared to an average of 4,554kbps in Greater London.

Councils, businesses and community organisations in Somerset are to take part in a £2.3m broadband project aiming to increase the take-up of e-government services.

The money – in the form of grant – has been given to the Devon and Somerset Rural Broadband Project by the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE).

The funding aims to help develop and encourage innovative approaches which address gaps in rural broadband coverage.

A growing number of households are adopting high-speed connections and this should bolster the argument for the roll-out of super-fast broadband across the nation. Experts believe that access to high-speed connections in isolated areas could help to breathe new life into countryside communities and boost the rural economy.