Left behind in broadband race

Published on Saturday 7 November 2009 19:03

IF LABOUR leader Iain Gray really does want "broadband access for all" (News, 1 November) I strongly suggest he does some research first and defines what he means by broadband.

I live and work less than 20 miles from Glasgow and, after years of local campaigning, BT gave our village broadband access about five years ago. I live less than a mile from the exchange and, at best, I can get a connection of around 7Mbps. However, at peak use times, such as from around 4pm to 7pm when kids are getting home from school and going online, my computer might as well be connected to the exchange by a length of string.

Trying to send or download large files can take ages. If it wasn't for the fact that one of my clients is an animal rights group, I'd buy some carrier pigeons.

Political pressure is required to force BT and other telecoms companies to get rid of the old copper-wire phone network and use their vast profits to replace it with a high-capacity glass, fibre-optical system.

We should be aiming for minimum internet connection speeds of between 20Mbps and 100Mbps, not the 2Mbps to 10Mbps we have to put up with now.

Scotland is being left far behind in the introduction of modern broadband and the economy of the whole country is suffering.

John F Robins, Cardross, Dumbarton