Loch Tay Gets Community 50Mbps Wireless Broadband from Public Funding

Some £109,078 of funding from the Scottish Government’s Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) initiative has enabled the fixed wireless broadband ISP AB Internet to work with the local Loch Tay community (Perth and Kinross) and roll-out a faster Internet service to around 350 people in 150+ premises.

Apparently the Ardeonaig and Ardtalnaig Community Association, on the south side of the loch, set up the Loch Tay Internet service, with additional support from Killin Community Council and the Loch Tay Association.

The service itself is only described as being “up to ten times faster than previously available“, although we know that AB Internet are offering similar services in other parts of the United Kingdom, with speeds from 4Mbps and going all the way up to 50Mbps for residential users.

Phil Simpson of the Christian Trust and Loch Tay Internet Project, said:

“We have all experienced increasing use of the internet and the pressing need for a reliable and fast broadband service. When nothing materialised from commercial suppliers we soon realised that if we wanted anything better we would have to create it ourselves.

The distance from the telephone exchange in Killin and copper land lines with many repairs in them meant cable broadband was not an option. Many of us got a satellite supply at the time of the Broadband Reach project in 2007-2008. This was OK but expensive for what we got and became less satisfactory as the internet use became more sophisticated.

CBS helped us appoint a technical consultant and select AB Internet to install broadband and they helped us access funding for the project; something we just wouldn’t have been able to afford on our own. We certainly wouldn’t have got to where we are without this help and support. Progress is going well and we expect to have the project complete by the end of October.”

It’s particularly interesting to note the comments about Satellite broadband, not least as the UK Government appear intent upon driving it as a solution for the final 1-3% of remote rural areas and yet here we have one community that is attempting to escape the platforms limitations.

Naturally we decided to have a little hunt around for further details and were able to learn that a 50Mbps service (10Mbps upload) is indeed being offered alongside a “fair usage policy of 100Gb download and 50Gb upload per month” (we hope that’s GigaBytes and not Gigabits), but locals do have to pay £39.99 per month for it. Mind you they don’t need to take fixed phone line rental on top.

UPDATE 19th October 2016

According to AB Internet: “We do offer unlimited downloads on our networks, for a monthly fee of £5. We now have a dedicated website for our deployments in Scotland. Please visit http://www.RuralBroadband.Scot.”