AM welcomes EU money to help rural broadband (Kirsty Williams AM )

Cymraeg
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Kirsty Williams AM <info@kirstywilliams.org.uk>

AM welcomes EU money to help rural broadband

January 7, 2010 12:00 AM

Kirsty Williams AM for Brecon and Radnorshire has welcomed the news that newly available EU funding will be used to boost broadband coverage across Wales.

The European Commission has give the go-ahead to the Welsh Government to use funding which is usually ring fenced for other IT activities to improve broadband access and connection speed to 'not spots' in rural and isolated areas.

Kirsty Williams said: "We have a large number of 'not spots' across Powys, where whole communities are unable to connect to broadband, putting us at a serious disadvantage socially and economically. As a result individuals are being left isolated and unable to access services which are taken for granted by so many elsewhere. The broadband gap is also penalising our local businesses, making it harder for many of them to compete in the national and global markets.

"Scotland has seen large areas of sparsely populated rural regions, with communities miles from telephone exchanges, being given access to broadband through their Broadband Reach (Scotland) project - in Wales similar communities look on from their 'not spots' with envy.

"The Scottish Executive has achieved this huge task by tendering out to companies which have provided practical and pragmatic solutions, from satellites to shared networks and I believe that we must follow suit if we are to achieve the same results.

"I hope that this new EU funding will signal an opportunity for Wales to move forward and truly eradicate its rural not spots."