Published on:
22
December 2010
Forth Valley and Lomond LEADER Local Action Group are delighted at the news that its bid to the Scottish Government's Rural Broadband Challenge Fund was one of only five bids in Scotland to be approved by the Scottish Parliament last Friday.
The project will put in place the necessary infrastructure to allow high speed broadband of between 2Mbps to 20 Mbps to be offered wirelessly as a commercial service which, as a minimum, will cover the communities of Tillicoultry, Alva East, Alloa West, Bandeath, Throsk, South Alloa, Cambusbarron and parts of rural south west Stirling. As a pilot, the exact reach of the signal won't be known until the equipment is in place.
The commissioning and purchase of equipment will start in the New Year, so communities and businesses keen to sign up to this high speed broadband service are asked to wait until more details are announced on how to sign up for the new service, which should be ready by Spring 2011.
Working in partnership with Clackmannanshire Council, Stirling Council, Stirling Development Agency, Clackmannanshire Development Agency and Touch Business Centre, the LEADER group led the bid, which focuses on the business 'not-spot' areas of the Forth Valley, using a pilot WI-MAX Wireless broadband solution.
Peter Sunderland, Chair of the Forth Valley and Lomond LEADER Group said: "The beauty of the solution is that it's not limited just to businesses, householders in the surrounding communities will also benefit".
Councillor Eddie Carrick, portfolio holder for sustainability, said, "I'm delighted that our bid has been recognised as a strong one and that we've got the funding to take this forward. Clackmannanshire has a great transport infrastructure that puts it at the centre of Scottish business. Now we can build an electronic infrastructure to match that."
The project will be managed by Clackmannanshire Council, which has already undertaken some WiMAX equipment trials in Alloa, and the pilot will be focused on the Bandeath Industrial Estate Stirling; Touch Business Centre Stirling; Alloa West Business Centre and businesses located along the Hillfoots area of Clackmannanshire.
All kinds of Forth Valley businesses will reap the benefit of high speed broadband, including the existing tenants of the business areas who have long been lobbying for fast and consistent access to the internet: "As the longest serving tenant and largest internet user in the Touch Business Centre, Neverfail Group is delighted with this result." said Ken Anton, Director of Engineering Support at Neverfail. "Neverfail was recently given an 'Innovation of the Year' award by the Chartered Institute for IT and as a company we will benefit significantly from this exciting infrastructure upgrade".
You can refer to our Broadband Survey web page.
1. Forth Valley and Lomond LEADER is one of the community based programmes of the Scottish Rural Development Programme. It is managed by a Local Action Group made up of volunteers from business, community representatives, and public agency officers. More information is available on www.fvl.org.uk
2. A call for bids for the Rural Broadband Challenge Fund was issued in July 2010 with submissions requested by 31 October 2010. Thirteen bids were submitted and five were successful (Forth Valley and Lomond, Borders, South Lanarkshire, Orkney and the Western Isles).
3. Neverfail is a leading global software company providing affordable data protection, high availability, and disaster recovery solutions focused on keeping users productive. www.neverfailgroup.com
Andrew Barnes, 0870 7771150 abarnes@neverfailgroup.com