Rutland Broadband Summit
Published:Tuesday 15 March 2011 Leading broadband providers from around the country converged on Oakham last week (Friday) as Rutland County Council's project to improve broadband speeds across the county gathered pace.The council is currently looking for a business partner to help deliver faster broadband speeds to homes and businesses in towns and villages across Rutland. Chief Executive of Rutland County Council, Helen Briggs, says: “We are currently going through a tender process to identify a partner for the Digital Rutland project. This is open to any business that thinks they can work with the council to deliver high speed broadband to homes and businesses across the county”. Helen Briggs added, “Some of our villages struggle to get a half-decent download speed which in this day and age is a real constraint. Low download speeds stop residents doing things many of us take for granted such as watching television online or downloading music tracks. For a local business, it can make the different between being able to trade competitively or not”. A number of high profile local and national broadband providers attended the Broadband Summit on Friday 11 March at Rutland County Museum. Display stands provided more information about the products that each broadband provider currently offers and following two presentations from the council, a question and answer session took place. The event was also attended by a number of local organisations including voluntary groups, town/parish council representatives and interested members of the community. The Digital Rutland project aims to provide minimum download speeds of: • 10Mbps to 95% of businesses (with 80% achieving minimum 25Mbps) • 10Mbps to 85% of households (with 75% achieving minimum 25Mbps) The overall aim of the Digital Rutland project is to deliver much faster broadband to towns and villages across the county by 2012/13. The council is currently waiting to hear if a bid for £1.6 million to the Regional Growth Fund has been successful and further applications for funding are due to be made in the coming months. For more information and the very latest news please visit www.rutland.gov.uk | ||
| Author: Rutland County Council enquiries@rutland.gov.uk 01572 722 577 | Display start: Tuesday 15 March 2011 | |