The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA) has told the BBC that a lack of good broadband internet access in rural Wales could be having a negative impact upon local tourism because "tech-savvy" visitors now expect to be able to get online wherever they stay.

The Welsh Government officially announced its Digital Wales strategy at the end of last year, which aims to bring superfast (30Mbps+) broadband to all Welsh businesses by the middle of 2016 and households by 2020. It's since won £56.9 Million in funding from the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office to help it achieve said targets.

At the same time they also have a £2m Broadband Support Initiative running, which offers grants of up to £1,000 for residents and businesses (per property) who live in parts of Wales where only basic 2Mbps or slower (i.e. no broadband) internet connection speeds are possible.


Certainly Satellite broadband is an excellent technology for the remotest areas and one that becomes significantly more affordable once the 'Broadband Support Initiative' grants are taken into account. However high latency, heavy traffic throttling and comparatively meagre usage allowances (varies between ISPs) often make it a poor choice for data hungry families and some businesses.


Back in July 2011 the Welsh Government said that it had so far approved 800 applications, at a total cost of £600,000 (i.e. £1.4m left), for its support scheme grants. Since then a total of 1,700 people are now known to have applied, although it's unclear how many have been approved.

Opponents to the support scheme fear that it could lead to a duplication of investment, with local government potentially having to come back to the same areas again in order to improve the infrastructure. On the other hand some ISPs have worked with communities to make more efficient use of the funds by installing wireless networks.