Kent UK Sets Aside GBP1.5 Million for Superfast Rural Broadband ISP Pilots
Posted: 01st Mar, 2011 By: MarkJ
The Kent County Council (KCC) has announced that they are setting aside £1.5 million for a new Superfast Broadband Pilot Fund, which aims to help local rural communities benefit from faster internet access via new ISP technologies.The cash itself will be made available to bids from community groups, parish councils or local authorities, specifically those where broadband "not spots" or slow access are serious problems. All applications must have a sound business case and show the economic benefits of superfast broadband.
Finally the bids must all be submitted by 14th April 2011, after which they will be scrutinised and prioritised accordingly. Successful bids could receive the maximum amount of funding (£100,000). Further details about the new broadband scheme can be found here.
Kevin Lynes, KCC Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Economic Development, said:
"Having access to fast broadband is as important as any other utility service. So many people need fast broadband to access services, buy and sell goods, run businesses, for education purposes or to simply enjoy in their spare time.
Many rural areas have ‘not spots’ which means they have either slow broadband or no service at all. Successful bids will be able to make a real difference to local people and change their quality of life. It will also bring a tangible economic benefit by helping businesses run in rural areas, creating employment and wealth.
However, there are only so many communities we can help, and ultimately by helping to prove the demand for broadband we hope the telecomms providers will take responsibility for bringing this technology to 'harder to reach' areas as well as benefiting from the more profitable urban areas. There will be further KCC funds available in the Summer and Autumn to enable a total of 15 areas to benefit, but it would be great to see the private sector recognising the need too."
"Having access to fast broadband is as important as any other utility service. So many people need fast broadband to access services, buy and sell goods, run businesses, for education purposes or to simply enjoy in their spare time.
Many rural areas have ‘not spots’ which means they have either slow broadband or no service at all. Successful bids will be able to make a real difference to local people and change their quality of life. It will also bring a tangible economic benefit by helping businesses run in rural areas, creating employment and wealth.
However, there are only so many communities we can help, and ultimately by helping to prove the demand for broadband we hope the telecomms providers will take responsibility for bringing this technology to 'harder to reach' areas as well as benefiting from the more profitable urban areas. There will be further KCC funds available in the Summer and Autumn to enable a total of 15 areas to benefit, but it would be great to see the private sector recognising the need too."
Kent is perhaps home to one of the country's most pro-active council's, at least when it comes to broadband provision. KCC revealed last summer (here) that its separate Community Broadband Grants scheme had spent £486,000 over the past 4 years to broadband enable 6,800 properties in the region.
Roger Gough, KCC Cabinet Member for Business Strategy and Support, said:
"This is also open for communities to bid for. Successful bids could receive up to £50,000 to help install broadband in ‘not spot’ areas. And since we launched this in 2006, there have been some great success stories, such as the village of Iwade, which was recognised by the government in its new digital strategy. This now has high speed [ BT FTTC ] broadband for local people to use."
"This is also open for communities to bid for. Successful bids could receive up to £50,000 to help install broadband in ‘not spot’ areas. And since we launched this in 2006, there have been some great success stories, such as the village of Iwade, which was recognised by the government in its new digital strategy. This now has high speed [ BT FTTC ] broadband for local people to use."
The effort has managed to cut the number of Kentish homes without good internet access from 37,958 to 21,026. Since then the total cash being spent on broadband grants has risen once again to £600,000. In addition KCC is about to launch its new Connecting Kent campaign, which will lobby the government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office for a slice of their £530m budget.
According to one of the council's earlier reports from 2009, Virgin Media UK's cable service could reach 38.3% of Kent's households, VFast's wireless service could cover 33.9% and BT managed 97.4%. However 40% were still unable to get download speeds of 4Mbps and roughly one quarter couldn't even get 2Mbps. About 8% of homes can only get 512Kbps (0.5Mbps).
The situation has improved a bit since then, but it's good to see that KCC isn't resting on its laurels and has made a proactive effort to move forward. Meanwhile many other council's have put existing efforts on hold in the hope of gaining a government hand-out. This is often counterproductive. Credit to Thinkbroadband for spotting the news.
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