Village moves into the next generation
Published 7 Feb 2012 09:30
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KILBARCHAN has become the latest Renfrewshire community to be hooked up to new high speed broadband.
Around 2,400 homes in the village have been connected to the "next generation" broadband service, which is already available in Renfrew, Bridge of Weir and Erskine.
The improved service - part of a multi-billion pound British Telecom investment in the broadband network - will more than double download speeds to up to 20 megabits per second (Mbps), and comes as a welcome boost to both business and residential customers.
Although the work will be carried out by BT, the improved service will be available to all internet providers.
The upgrade has been welcomed by Kilbarchan business owners, councillors and residents, who see it as good news for the local economy.
Councillor Iain Nicolson (pictured), the council's planning and economic development policy board convenor, told the Gazette: "This is great news for people living and working in Kilbarchan.
"Not only will it make it much easier for people to use online services and carry out business online, it will quite literally bring them up to speed with several other areas in Renfrewshire and across Scotland."
Brendan Dick, BT Scotland director, said: "This is an important step forward for Kilbarchan.
"In these challenging economic times, faster broadband can help businesses become more competitive, find new customers and work more flexibly as well as greatly improving the online services available to families, homeworkers and other internet users.
"By the summer, around 72 per cent of Scotland's homes and businesses - equivalent to more than 1.5 million premises - will be served by an exchange that has been upgraded to deliver these higher speeds."
Mr Dick added: "BT remains keen to work with the public sector to explore ways of bringing faster broadband to other areas which are geographically and commercially more challenging."
The investment in the copper network is in addition to BT's £2.5 billion roll-out of fibre-based broadband, which will bring even faster speeds to around two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.
This article appeared in The Gazette 03 Feb 12
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