Final stage for high speed broadband in the Isle of Wight

According to recent reports a bid to bring high speed broadband to the Isle of Wight has reached its final stages with officials hoping to get a grant to improve the exchange.

A bid to bring high speed broadband to the Isle of Wight is said to be reaching its final stages, and officials in the area are hoping to get a grant from the Rural Development Programme for England so that exchanges can be upgraded. The groups behind the bid for improvement include Natural Enterprise, Navigate IT and Telecom, Yarmouth Town Council, Yarmouth Business Association, Yarmouth Harbour Commissioners and the Country Land and Business Association.

The exchange that the groups want to upgrades is one that serves Yarmouth, Ningwood, Wellow, Thorley and Westhill. By improving and upgrading the exchange those service by could receive higher speed broadband with speeds of up to 24Mbps. This will be highly beneficial to the residents and the businesses in the area.

Brian Friend, the Natural Enterprise chairman, said: “This is a real opportunity, not only for the Yarmouth area, but for the rest of the Island too. The initial work forms part of our drive to bring high-speed broadband to all rural areas on the Island.” He added that the group needed to prove that there was a demand for the service and that it would benefit the local economy.

Paul Wood, managing director of Navigate IT and Telecom, said: “At the moment Yarmouth’s achievable maximum broadband speed is only 7.5Mbs, with few households having this speed. This project will able us to increase the maximum speed to 24Mbs, which won’t be available to everyone as much will depend on your proximity to the exchange, but we intend to provide a minimum speed of 6Mbs.”

Source – IWCP