Wireless ISP Airband Bring Broadband to 14 Worcestershire UK Parishes

Fixed wireless ISP Airband has announced that over 100 customers in three parishes across rural parts of Worcestershire (England’s West Midlands) can now access faster broadband connections “for the first time” thanks to a £700k scheme supported by the Worcestershire County Council (WCC).

So far Airban has managed to successfully connect 120 residents and businesses in parts of North West Malvern, Little Witley and Redditch. In the future the new network is expected to help connect 14 of Worcestershire’s parish communities, which in total account for approximately 2000 residents and 200 businesses.

It’s understood that at least a further 300 connections are scheduled to go live before the end of June 2013 in the remaining 11 rural parishes. Local customers pay Airband from £10 per month for a 10Mbps connection with a 1GB usage allowance, which rises to £22 for the 20Mbps service with a 40GB allowance (plus £150 for installation on an 18 month contract).

Cllr Simon Geraghty, Deputy Leader, said:

“Wherever you live, Act Local, means people coming together to do things for themselves – using their time, ideas and skills to make things better for themselves and their local community. There is no finer example of this than the time and effort put in by the people involved in making faster broadband a reality in the communities of North West Malvern, Little Witley and Redditch Travel Arc.

It is fantastic to see the real difference that we knew this would make to local people’s lives and for our local businesses. We can’t wait to see more and more people in these parishes realising the benefits that faster broadband can bring.”

The scheme is designed to help areas that would otherwise be unlikely to benefit from the council’s wider Superfast Worcestershire project, which aims to make fixed line superfast broadband services available to 90% of local premises by 2015 or 2016. A contract deal is expected to be confirmed during the summer 2013 (almost certain to pick BT since they’re the only bidders left in the BDUK framework).