Cumbria UK to Spend GBP2.5m Promoting Superfast Broadband to Businesses

The Cumbria County Council, which last month awarded its £70m contract (external investment) for rolling out superfast broadband (25Mbps+) services to BT, will also spend £2.5m on a new “integrated business support programme” to promote related products to local businesses. But is it necessary?

The Connecting Cumbria plan, which is funded by £23m of successful grants, £17.1m from the government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office, £15.4m from the EU and £30m from BT, ultimately aims to ensure that over 93% of the county can access a superfast broadband service by the end of 2015

Now a new tender has surfaced which suggests that £2.5m will also be spent on stimulating take-up among local small and medium sized enterprises.

Alan Cook, Programme Manager for Connecting Cumbria, said:

“The £2.5m will fund business support. It will make businesses aware of the ways broadband can give them real benefits.”

On the one hand we can see how there would be advantages to a massive promotional campaign but at the same time many might well question why it’s necessary, especially when businesses are usually more conscious than most about the benefits of faster connectivity. On top of that BT and related ISPs are no slouches when it comes to independently promoting their services to locals.

Similarly £2.5m is a lot of money and could, provided it was used wisely, potentially have helped to connect a significant number of homes and businesses in that final 7%.