Broadband in the Western Isles

An ever increasing number of small business owners who work via the internet are recognising the Hebrides as a fantastic base from which to run their e-business for high quality of life. One of the main questions from this group challenges has been the availability of a fast (broadband) internet connection in the Western Isles. The Connected communities project was set up in order to meet this challenge and make sure that lack of a fast connection was not a hurdle for e-business owners thinking of locating in the Western Isles. The program has been up and running for some time and Hebrides.net has all the details of the services on offer.

The Highlands and Islands Pathfinder Procurement Project is a 70m government project currently underway to ensure that the entire Highlands and Islands area has access to the latest broadband connection technology and announced last month that Thus plc has won the contract to rollout the project. Rollout is expected to start next month and be complete by Sep 2008.