Broadband Update

For those of us who live within a few kilometres of the Kilchoan telephone exchange, this is a wonderful sight, a man gently feeding our very own super-fast broadband fibre optic cable into the ducting that runs for miles along the road and under the Sound to Mull, and which should give us some really fast browser speeds when it comes into operation next year.

For those who live in the far scattered villages on the end of the peninsula, and for those poor souls who dwell in such technologically benighted places as Glenborrodale, Camas Inas and Laga, this cable is a piece of junk as it'll do them no good at all - not unless they can persuade the people who administer the funds for this multi-million pound project to spend some extra money on them.

Dave Kime has worked incredibly hard to gather the evidence which should make their case, and it's being presented to Sandra Byrne, Community Broadband Scotland Adviser, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, when she attends the West Ardnamurchan Community Council meeting on 2nd February. Sandra is keen to help but needs evidence that the people who will miss out are really worried about it.  So a big turnout to support him would add power to Dave's elbow.  Please be at Kilchoan Community Centre at 8pm this Monday.

Update:  BT are reported to have underspent on the broadband contract by some £92 million - see BBC report here.  Perhaps just a wee bit of that could be channelled into West Ardnamurchan.

The documentary evidence which Dave has is in two papers which can be downloaded from these links - Comments on Broadband and Broadband Update.