Teesdale once had the worst broadband access in the whole of the UK but a project led by the regeneration team at Barnard Castle Vision is aiming to change all that. The Digital Teesdale scheme will provide regular, high-speed internet services to all the area’s towns and villages, including some remote parts where broadband is not currently available.
Backed by Durham County Council in conjunction with regional development agency One North East, the new, subscription based WiMAX service is being installed by Networks by Wireless. It will be fully rolled out by the end of the year.
A survey by Barnard Castle Vision and the Enterprise Agency for Wear Valley and Teesdale in 2008 found many areas of poor or no connectivity. Many businesses and residents who responded to the survey said they would not be able to stay in the area without better broadband. In addition, research by Teesdale Action Partnership the following year found the poor connectivity was affecting crucial areas of local activity, including business, education and health and welfare.
The new service will offer a guaranteed minimum download speed of 2MB per second, which will not reduce at any time of the day, no matter how many people are online. Beneficiaries will include isolated farms and those communities which currently have poor or no connectivity
In total, the project expects to connect a large number of micro-enterprises and a wide variety of residential, community and business users. It will also offer public internet access to over 100,000 visitors a year through wifi zones in Barnard Castle and Middleton-in-Teesdale.
The project has brought together a number of local partners, all of whom are able to use it to pursue different goals. The Upper Teesdale Agricultural Support Service, for example, is ensuring that farmers can get online to complete their DeFRA returns. The Bowes museum in Barnard Castle will be able to offer wifi to visitors, and the Teesdale Village Halls Consortium plans to provide local access for residents and businesses.
More information: http://www.barnardcastlevision.co.uk/broadband.asp
Picture by Graham Jones; used under Creative Commons licence