Lib Dems Welcome Community Broadband Proposals for Rural Villages

The County Council has agreed a new policy on extending broadband to rural areas, which has now set some money aside with a commitment to explore community-based projects. The previous policy followed a standard contract, BT provided Fibre to the Cabinet connections in a number of villages that allow speeds between 2 - 24Mbps, depending on the distance from the home to the cabinet.

However, this approach would not deliver for homes that lived too far from these cabinets, and a number of community groups, such as the Welland, having been calling an alternative approach in order to get the quality of connections they need. The new policy, that sets money aside to explore community projects, hopes to meet these needs.

Some smaller broadband providers offer Fibre to the Premises connections that can deliver speeds up to 1,000 Mbps and have been able to provide connections direct to properties, even in areas that are very sparsely populated. The Liberal Democrats, who had been campaigning for community approaches to rural broadband, welcomed these new measures.

Cllr Simon Galton said, "There are a number of deep rural areas that are unlikely to benefit from the standard broadband extension scheme. If we're going to truly provide Leicestershire residents with superfast broadband then we need to take an innovative approach.

Some of the smaller broadband providers are offering community solutions that provide faster connections with future-proofed technology. I welcome proposals to explore this and look forward to seeing what we achieve."