Highlands firms on trail to boost rural internet links

Two Highlands-based companies have teamed up to bring internet access to remote locations in the area, helping projects such as windfarm sites and road construction projects.

External Reality boss Richard Allan, left, with Mark Alexander of DR Alexander & Son. Picture: Contributed

DR Alexander & Son has supplied a small fleet of rugged domestic trailers to Inverness-based External Reality for conversion into platforms to carry a piece of electronic kit using a satellite link.

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A handful of the Sinect TMS – Trailer Mounted Satellite – systems have been ordered, and External Reality boss Richard Allan said: “I believe we are the first company to look at providing a trailer-based system such as this as an option.

“We’ll first see how it goes in Scotland and then it’s our intention to take it right across the UK and then after that perhaps internationally.”

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DR Alexander & Son, with bases in Caithness and Inverness, was set up in 1982 and is the main distributor of Ifor Williams Trailers in the area.

Managing director Mark Alexander said: “This has been a very nice order for us.”

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