Business ISP C4L Expands Wireless Broadband to Isle of Wight Rural Areas

Business ISP C4L, which is based around Poole and Bournemouth on the south coast of England UK, has announced that its existing superfast wireless broadband service is being extended to rural homes and businesses on the Isle of Wight.

The move is thanks to a new agreement with Natural Enterprise, a not-for-profit organisation, which will see C4L supporting the local Yarmouth Broadband project by delivering a 100Mbps (Megabits per second) wireless connection between the islands Yarmouth Exchange and C4L’s own UK network on the mainland (Bournemouth).

Graham Biss, Managing Director at Natural Enterprise, explained:

“Rural high-speed broadband is essential if we’re to stop Britain from becoming a society of online haves and have-nots. Since traditional service providers are limited to providing connectivity in urban areas that their networks can easily reach, the rest of the island’s population of 140,000 must find other means to get online. Whether through the actions of local councils or initiatives such as the Rural Communities Broadband Fund, we have to find ways to provide the connections that will stop these people being left behind.

In this respect, C4L is providing an essential lifeline for us in helping to make the whole of the Isle of Wight a viable spot to live or do business online.”

The Yarmouth Broadband project aims to bring significantly faster internet speeds to 1,200 premises in the area. At present many of the related homes and businesses can only receive an average connection of less than 2Mbps and it’s hoped that the new service will deliver “up to 3 times more” speed than that.

Matt Hawkins, MD of C4L, added:

“As we march into the 21st century, high-speed broadband continues to move from being a luxury to a necessity. If Britain is to become a true information economy everyone in the country must have the same ability to access, manipulate and share data. As a result, projects such as Yarmouth Broadband are vital to provide high-speed connections to areas that could otherwise be left behind. Of course, any network access is only as good as its connection: this is why we at C4L are proud to be providing the high-capacity, high-redundancy wireless access that will keep the Internet flowing on the Isle of Wight.”

As a side note the Isle of Wight Council (IWC) last year approved a new plan that will put £15 Million into boosting superfast broadband coverage. Work on this, separate from the new C4L service, could begin during the first half of 2013.