According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the number of adults who have never been online keeps on shrinking.
How many adults have not been online as yet?
The number has shrunk to 7.1m (it previously stood at 7.42m) from the final quarter of last year to Q1 of 2013. The data also shows that men are 4 per cent more likely to surf the web than women. In addition, age plays an important role in being able to access the web. The data shows that perhaps unsurprisingly 99 per…
Edita Lozovska - 15 May 2013 | comments. Read more
A recent study conducted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has found that while the majority of UK farmers were now connected to broadband, superfast broadband was still not a wide spread option because of the lack of its availability in rural areas.
Rural broadband
The study found that 60 per cent of rural locations could only get speeds below 2Mbps, 32 per cent were connected to a service which could achieve speeds above 2Mbps and 6 per cent were still using old-fashioned dialup services. What’s more,…
Edita Lozovska - 15 April 2013 | comments. Read more
The council of the Isle of Wight are stepping up to find a contractor that will provide superfast broadband to the rural residents of the island.
Norman Arnold from the Isle of Wight Federation of Small Businesses said:
“Having fast internet speeds across the island is vital to the success of our small businesses – particularly those in more rural areas.”
The council needs to decide on a contractor by September so that work can start on the £3m project.
A council spokesman said:
“Work on the ground was likely to start in the…
Selina Moses - 12 February 2013 | comments. Read more
Hereford’s local internet provider Allpay broadband has the church’s favour.
The Bishop of Hereford said that supporting Allpay broadband was a “win-win situation we were happy to back.”
Allpay is an installation of wireless broadband transmitters at local access points to create a network for Hereford’s rural areas.
Allpay promises connection speeds of up to 35Mb, a vast improvement for residents living in villages.
Church steeples are the local access point of choice and more than 400 churches have been rigged with the connection.
Currently there are 17 access points: the villages of…
Selina Moses - 5 February 2013 | comments. Read more
The village of Islip in Oxfordshire have raised £11,000 of their own money to pay for super-fast broadband.
As Islip was not on the list for not being commercially viable but nearby Kidlington was, the residents are making sure that they will not be left out.
Alison Mitchell, chair of Islip Parish Council said:
“Due to the distance from the local exchange at Kidlington, our villagers have received extremely slow broadband to date over the existing copper lines.”
“High speed broadband is of critical importance for many residents, and especially people who run…
Selina Moses - 17 January 2013 | comments. Read more
It seems that the island of St Helena will not be getting speedy broadband connection anytime soon.
The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has refused the request for broadband funding.
The 4,000 residents of St Helena, a UK owned island in the Atlantic Ocean currently rely on expensive satellite connection.
They are seeking £10 million for funding but the UK government provides £25m in aid per year.
St Helena’s first airport is still a project in development, currently costing £200 million so the government are reluctant to fund more schemes on the…
Selina Moses - 15 January 2013 | comments. Read more
Current communications Minister Ed Vaizey said that broadband upgrades will benefit UK farmers.
He stated in the Farmer’s Guardian of the “big demand” for faster internet in rural communities using the government’s £530 million Rural Broadband Fund.
He said:
“Over the coming months, we will approve the procurement of more than 40 rural broadband programmes.”
As rural areas will gain broadband services and speeds to match the cities, 90 per cent of UK homes and businesses will have super-fast speeds.
The rest will have download speeds of at least 2Mb.
Selina Moses - 14 January 2013 | comments. Read more
Broadband 4 Rural North (B4RN) has been entered for the Local Business Accelerators contest.
B4RN is a community organisation that provides high-speed broadband in Lancashire which currently aims to ensure free advertising in the local papers.
It is one of eight firms to make the shortlist which is being supported by 500 newspapers.
If successful, B4RN will gain a spot in the national finals and the winning team will be given a mentor for a year and a local ad campaign.
The project intends to supply speedy fibre optic broadband to the rural…
Selina Moses - 8 January 2013 | comments. Read more
The UK’s leading think tank Policy Exchange has reported that access to the internet for everyone is more important than the current project of supplying cities with superfast broadband.
According to the estimate, 10.8m people are not online with half of them over the age of 65.
The government has provided the means to extend superfast broadband to 90 per cent of the country and keep the broadband speeds of 2 Mbps by 2015.
Policy Exchange said that after these targets are met, the focus should be on wider access to the…
Selina Moses - 7 January 2013 | comments. Read more
The city of Worcester may soon be getting super-fast broadband with the focus on the areas of Claines, Warndon Villages and Diglis.
Every year the city council gets a grant for the amount of new properties being built in the area, known as the New Homes Bonus.
The aim is to spend the grant on resurfacing the roads, boosting the economy and building social housing.
The city’s council is waiting on the authorisation of £50,000 being used for better internet connection.
The additional £50,000 for faster broadband is on top of the £11.8m…
Selina Moses - 10 December 2012 | comments. Read more
