THE head of Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) will be in Moray on Monday (23 June) to meet residents from some of Moray’s harder-to-reach broadband areas who want to look at ways to boost local speeds.
At an event hosted by Moray MSP Richard Lochhead and CBS director, Mark Tate, will meet with people from Mulben, Orton, Cabrach and Dunphail to further discuss options to improve broadband.
CBS, as part of Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), has been tasked by the Scottish Government to work with communities right across Scotland who won’t benefit from the commercial or the publicly funded roll-out of fibre, and help them find sustainable ways to get faster broadband.
The project forms part of the Scottish Government’s Digital Scotland strategy.
Around 35 per cent of homes and businesses in Moray are already able to access fibre broadband as part of BT’s commercial and the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme.
This roll-out of faster services across the Highlands and Islands, which is being led by HIE, will bring fibre closer to all.
This will dramatically change what local people can do digitally, but there are some areas of Moray where the infrastructure may not reach in this first three year project.
Mark commented: “Community Broadband Scotland is working with lots of rural communities across Scotland who receive poor broadband and are unlikely to benefit from the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programmes which aims to connect 95 per cent of premises in Scotland to a next generation broadband infrastructure by 2017.
“I am looking forward to meeting with people from communities in Moray who are keen to find ways of accessing high speed data connections.
“Our experience is that community broadband projects pull together people in rural communities to find innovative ways of achieving these connections.
“Access to better broadband can transform the way rural communities live, work and learn and we have already helped over 600 households and businesses get connected.”
Note to editors:
Community Broadband Scotland is a Scottish Government project led by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. It inspires, supports and empowers remote and rural communities across Scotland to establish community broadband networks, delivering improved connectivity which will transform the way communities live, work and learn.
Our focus is those areas least likely to benefit from the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband rollouts.
To find out more, visit www.communitybroadbandscotland.org
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Contact: HIE Communications
Phone: 01463244211
Email: communications@hient.co.uk
Website: http://www.hie.co.uk
