The Isle of Wight Council, has announced it is pressing ahead with plans to invest £3 million of tax payer money in rural broadband.
Better Broadband For Isle of Wight Moves Closer
Responding to this announcement, John Irvine, CEO of island network operator WightFibre said the council’s broadband plan is flawed.
Isle of Wight Council Continues to Waste Taxpayer money on flawed Broadband Plan. Council Plans to deliver Island-wide high speed broadband by 2019 (no, that isn’t a typo, 2019)
“The government’s procurement framework is biased in favour of BT and prevents local island networks like WightFibre from bidding. In any event, WightFibre will achieve the objectives the Council states in the Council’s own published broadband plan and it will do this WITHOUT any Council funding. WightFibre will achieve the objective of providing high speed broadband throughout the island years ahead of BT. The Council’s ‘approved supplier (likely to be BT) will not even start work until Spring 2014 according to the Council’s own timetable.”
Irvine added, “The public should ask the council why it is wasting their money in this way?”.
“WightFibre wishes to work co-operatively with the Council to make the Isle of Wight the most connected rural community in the UK. Already, 100Mb broadband is available to 25% of the population and speeds of 30Mb (8 times the current rural average) are on target to be delivered to the whole island during 2013 and 2014, well ahead of the Council’s 2019 deadline. Speeds of 10Mb (2.5 times the rural broadband average) are already available to 95% of the island”.
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