FSB and WarwickNet to Tackle Slow Business Broadband in Northamptonshire

The Federation of Small Businesses and WarwickNet have joined forces in Northamptonshire (England) for a unique project to identify business parks and industrial estates that have been labelled the “worst affected” by a lack of good broadband, with the goal being to then rollout superfast connectivity to those areas.

WarwickNet certainly has some established experience in this field, not least with the recent rollout of a new 40 – 1000Mbps capable fibre optic broadband network (FTTC and FTTP) to businesses on Derby’s (East Midlands, England) Pride Park (here).

Similar developments have also recently taken place in CorbyGate and Weldon Industrial Estates. The service delivered is often a lot cheaper for SME sized firms, which might otherwise struggle to afford the costly leased line solutions offered via BT’s network or be forced to suffer slow first generation style ADSL lines.

The FSB has often claimed that smaller business can suffer from poor connectivity (here) and repeatedly campaigns for improvement. Under the new project the FSB will work with its members and the ISP in order to identify locations that could benefit from an upgrade.

Maxine Aldred, FSB Development Manager for Northamptonshire, said:

“We have been asked by WarwickNet to identify priority business parks in need of superfast broadband and we are in the process of speaking to our members, many of whom depend upon greater bandwidth in order to compete for contracts or to simply run their businesses effectively.”

Ben King, MD of WarwickNet, said:

“We are making real progress on the ground in Northampton with strong partnerships with the local authority and now the FSB providing us with a route map of where to go next to help bring an end to Jurassic Parks in the county.”

Last year the ISP also won Code Powers from Ofcom, which makes it easier for them to roll-out their fibre broadband network to businesses by, among other things, making use of Openreach’s existing cable ducts and pole sharing products (here). Hopefully the new project will help Northamptonshire to tackle the so-called problem of “Jurassic business parks“.