[Market/Policy] Move to increase access to remotest inhabitants

wexfordman

Have a look at this, plans to have broadband coverage to the entire nation by 2005!!!!

Before you get excited, this is for scotland, not for E-Ireland:-




Almost half the population of the Scottish Highlands, 200,000 of Britain's remotest inhabitants, will soon have access to broadband, according to Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the region's development agency.

But more remarkably, a combination of unprecedented telecom industry partnerships, innovative technical solutions and a policy drive by public agencies could deliver broadband access to almost everyone in Britain's furthest flung corners by 2005, however remote their croft or castle.

That is the goal of HIE, which has been pushing to connect the Highlands - a policy deemed by the agency as of equal economic significance as the electrification of the glens in the 1950s and the installation of an IDSL telecom network in the 1990s.

Calum Davidson, head of knowledge economy at the agency, said: "We've got a set of tools and mechanisms which will enable the Highlands to have pretty ubiquitous broadband coverage.

"We've done a lot of pilots - we're confident it will work."

Larger Highland towns such as Inverness are already covered by mainstream ADSL technology - covering about 200,000 people.

Earlier this month, BT and Thus, the telecom providers, announced a private sector partnership to extend ADSL access to the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland.

BT is investing in reconfiguring local exchanges to provide ADSL. Meanwhile, Thus had spare connection capacity in the Highlands where BT had none.

Bob Downes, head of BT Scotland, said: "It obviously made sense to co-operate. Teaming up to get it to the islands kept the costs down."

In July, HIE created Hi-Wide, a non-profit company designed to roll broadband out to the rest of the Highlands and Islands. Financed equally by EU funds and HIE, the company expects to invest an initial £2.6m in extending broadband to 50 communities in the next six months.

HIE will install a leased line to a local centre, then use Wi-Fi wireless technology to offer broadband connectivity to homes within a three-mile range. Small communities in Orkney, Wester Ross, Cromarty, Lochaber and Tobermoray had successfully piloted the technology, said Mr Davidson.

Where direct line connections were impossible, Mr Davidson said HIE planned to pioneer the use of small solar or wind-powered wireless masts to allow signals to skip across mountains.

Access for a further 50 communities would be made available in a second six-month roll-out starting in late 2004, he said.

The ambitious programme's success, however, will depend on demand. Mr Downes said high-speed internet access had been adopted by only 5 per cent of the Highlanders to whom it had been made available.

Mr_Man

it was N. Ireland who announced something similar, no doubt the Welsh Development Agency will be next. Meanwhile we here in the e-Centre of Europe have our......

What exactly do we have apart from a figure of 8 which is connected to very little.

Again I call for politicians with vision, but we'd probably have to import them..

M.

De Rebel

Originally posted by wexfordman
Have a look at this, plans to have broadband coverage to the entire nation by 2005!!!!

Before you get excited, this is for scotland, not for E-Ireland:-

Wexfordman

Do you have a source/link for this? This is very very exciting and SO fits what IOFFL are proposing.

Frankly if there is substance to this., and i'm sure that there is, and if we could meet hthese people and understand their proposal, it could be a perfect model for what we are proposing for ireland. And seeing things like and "partnership " between BT and its competitor really puts it up to the all the parties in this country to respond in the same way and to work together for the common good.

This really puts it up to the vested interests in this countrry.


This really moves the likelyhood of widespread availibility of broadband from the theoretically possible to the

Please let us have a link to the source.

Chowley

They'll still fail half the people.

wexfordman

Rebel,

Hope your looking forward to your wireless bb in Cork........

Heres the link you asked for.

Regards,
wexfordman

http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=031104001028&query=Move+to+increase+access+to+remotest+inhabitants&vsc_appId=totalSearch&state=Form

spongebob

Before ye get excited ye should remember that we ALREADY have a plan like this and the the fabulous Mary Hanafin will sort us all out by 2005

Its called New Connections , the Scots nicked it off us I suspect.

http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/viewitem.asp?id=1153&lang=ENG

and the detail is in

http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/upload/publications/1153.pdf

M

sceptre

Originally posted by Muck
and the the fabulous Mary Hanafin will sort us all out by 2005

Hah

I suppose that mail I got from her office saying they were totally committed to the deadline in New Connections (I think it's up on eircomtribunal.com) (and I did highlight the 5Mbit thing) is just a keepsake now.

spongebob

Originally posted by sceptre
Hah

I suppose that mail I got from her office saying they were totally committed to the deadline in New Connections (I think it's up on eircomtribunal.com) (and I did highlight the 5Mbit thing) is just a keepsake now.

It wouldn't be a keepsake if you chose this moment to REPLY to it and ask how things are "Coming Along" like minister. Do remind her of the 3.5Ghz licences and how BB for all citizens in the state by Feb 2005 is coming nearer realisation.

Then ask her what her next great lplan is, give her a week to respond and then we'll all start mailing her every day till she does . If Hanafin thinks she can slither away from this one she is very much mistaken.

M

crawler

I am convinced I saw Mary H running through Meath with a roll of 96 core fibre on her back....or maybe that was a Dream....??

What's more disturbing - dreaming about Fibre connection or dreaming about Mary H??