Posted: 26th Jan, 2011 By: MarkJ


The
TFL-Group, a fixed wireless ( Wi-Fi , WiMAX ) broadband ISP based in
Wales (UK), has helped one of
Pembrokeshire's internet "
Notspots", specifically the area around
St Davids and the communities to the north and west of the historic city, get connected.
Until now the community had only been served with a fixed line BT connection, which was apparently so poor that some residents could not even achieve a usable voice service. By contrast the
Treleddyd Fawr Community Broadband Project will see local residents and 20 businesses being able to access high speed (or indeed any speed) broadband internet for the very first time.
The scheme is thought to be the first large scale project successfully processed under the Welsh Assembly’s (WAG)
Broadband Support Scheme, which offers
grants worth up to £1,000 to individual properties that are unable to get a good broadband ISP connection in Wales.
Treleddyd Fawr Community Broadband project co-ordinator, John Warren, said:
"The far west of Pembrokeshire has suffered for years with poor telephone services, with the nearest telephone exchange in Solva being a massive 17km away. BT effectively gave up on us a long time ago, and so the onus has been very much on us to come together as a community and solve our own access problems. Realistically, wireless delivery with the support of the Welsh Assembly’s Broadband Support scheme has been the only viable option."
TFL Group's Director, Jonathan England, added:
"Treleddyd Fawr and the area around St Davids is one of the most poorly-served areas of BT’s network that we have ever seen. Not only were basic internet services completely unobtainable, but in many cases the communications signal was so weak that even basic telephone services were practically unusable.
This project would not have been completed in such a short time without the help of the Assembly’s broadband support scheme and consequently, we are expecting the new high-speed telephony services to make a huge impact to business and homes in the area, with a signal that can be easily upgraded and extended to anywhere else within the region, as necessary."
The Treleddyd Fawr project will now receive
5Mbps ADSL and SDSL broadband services, delivered from a brand new transmission tower, which TFL erected specifically for the task. TFL's carrier signal originates in
Swansea and is transported over the company’s private wireless mast infrastructure, which runs throughout south, west and mid-Wales.
An added benefit is that users may also now replace their poor quality BT telephone lines with free, IP (internet protocol) telephony services. TFL claims that this could result in a significant improvement for both internet/broadband and traditional telephone services in a single package.
According to TFL, wireless delivery of broadband services to Welsh '
Notspots' remains the only realistic alternative for households or businesses that cannot already receive a broadband service via their local BT exchange. There is of course Satellite too, although this does have issues with latency and usage flexibility.