Welsh Broadband is worth 67p per head....

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) July 5, 2011 -- To much fanfare the Welsh Assembly Government (as it was then) announced it's £2million BSS (Broadband Support Scheme) that would enable individuals and businesses who could not achieve 512Kbps download speeds or better to attract a grant of up to £1000 to have broadband installed.

On 4th July 2011 – Edwina Hart's department announced that the scheme would be extended and would allow users who could not achieve 2Mbps or better to benefit from the scheme.

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Welsh Broadband is worth 67p per head....

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On the same day North Yorkshire announced £25-30million to be invested in broadband infrastructure, and Councillor Carl Les was quoted as saying the investment would:

“will help place the area 'on a level playing field' with the facilities available in major cities such as London and Leeds.

In June there were announcements for:

Devon & Cornwall - £30m of grants (Population: 754700 + 535300)
Norfolk - £15m of grants (Population: 853400)
Wiltshire - £4m in grants (Population: 432973)

North Yorkshire has 597700 residents
Wales has 3006400

To put this into context that would equate to the following investment per head:

North Yorkshire £41.83
Devon & Cornwall £23.26
Norfolk £17.58
Wiltshire £9.24
Wales £0.67

Is Wales up in arms about the disparity between the modest investment in a nation, as opposed to the significant one in a English counties?

No.

Are the Welsh broadband industry clamouring for an explanation as to why the country should accept that this is okay?

No.

Why?

“Wales is slowly accepting that our Government lacks the vision and ambition to make Wales a great digital nation,” says Richard Brown COO of Wispa Limited, “bemoaning the lack of action, defined plan, or vision is no longer useful – we have to act – and act now.”

Obviously, some will point to the Digital Wales project, but the reality is that this is entirely unlikely to solve the remote rural issues that exist. Connectivity has always been delivered to the most convenient areas of Wales, and the future investment in fibre infrastructure is unlikely to extend to Mr Jones on Hilltop farm.

Couple this with the criteria for bidding for the contract in the first place (estimated to be hundreds of millions of pounds) and BT are the only realistic candidate for winning in any event. BT seem unlikely to suddenly see rural communities as profitable any more than they have so far.

Is there a solution to this?

“The Welsh Government need to get more ambitious and start believing this is truly a great nation in waiting. Get the broadband industry onside – help them – fund some of what they do – get rid of the ridiculous bureaucracy and we can deliver a digital national that will challenge globally,” states Brown, “or we can just keep announcing policy that makes virtually no impact and wait for the sycophants in the industry to declare the Emperor’s clothes to be beautiful”.

More information can be found online at http://wispa.me

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