Sunday 4 April 2010

Welsh Exchanges named in great BT fibre broadband expansion

Bridgend (assuming that is Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr, and not the one in Scotland)

Connah's Quay

Hawarden

Hengoed

Llantrisant

Newtown Llantwit

Er... that's it.

{see the full list here)

Some good broadband news

Ofcom is to crack down on ISPs who are less than honest about speeds which they provide. I have heard a number of complaints about a certain provider in this area which appears to degrade the service to long-standing customers in order to demonstrate high bandwidth to new ones.

2 comments:

NetworkGuy (localplaces) said...

It may be 'good news' that a half dozen exchanges in Wales were listed, but with 300 in total, around 2/3 were in London or the South East.

How can rural users (and to be fair, even those outside the South East) get a 'level playing field' when so much is skewed towards businesses and households in that section of England.

I won't go into numbers but just look at the BBC local radio provision for yourself. Internet access is on a bit of a parallel, with Scotland, NI, and Wales left in the doldrums.

Broadband may be fine for people in big cities, but only about half of the households in Wales have a PC (from an old Mousemat programme on R Wales), so I find it ironic that the BBC will be pushing 'extra information' being available 'via our website' and the phone in shows etc will all be talking about people sending them a message using Twitter or Facebook, no doubt!

Frank Little said...

The point about bringing broadband to rural areas is that it enables businesses which rely on fast connections to locate there. This takes pressure off metropolitan centres and helps diversify towns and villages which are otherwise dependent on agriculture.

There are also benefits to the younger generation.