Project Access improves broadband availability in Cumbria

The Communication “Bridging the broadband gap” found broadband infrastructure in remote, under developed or rural areas in many European countries needs a lot of commitment and investments. It gives many suggestions regarding the budgetary and regulatory instruments, including EU Information society policy and telecommunications rules and the use of EU structural and rural funds. The exchange of best practices and the strengthening of synergies among relevant EU policies have been identified as the best ways to deliver broadband to rural, remote and less developed regions of the European Union.

Project Access, one of the projects to overcome the gap in broadband availability, has been implemented on full swing, in Cumbria, a county in the UK. Project Access completely changed the scenario in

Cumbria which has not attracted potential investments from telecoms industry for a long time.

Project Access had three objectives:

• To sustain the economic growth in the region
• To improve thequality of peoples’ lives by providing broadband access in the area
• To create a united telecoms platform on which to build and deliver common eGovernment services.

Ever since Project Access is implemented, broadband availability has grown from 35% to nearly cent percent in the county. Similarly, the broadband take up has also risen 50 percent in SMEs, while many of them being rural. The new radio networks connected all the exchanges with ADSL. In addition, new fibre optics were installed and the county and district governments were united over one very high-speed network.The UK Government Treasury under the Capital Projects Review Process approved the project and sanctioned £29.47 million for the project. Furthermore the project gained significant funds from local governments amounting to £2.33 million.

While the mobilization of funds has been smoother than expected, a marketing team of the project has started to raise awareness and increase broadband take-up by visiting numerous business people in the region.

Some of the surveys indicate that the decline in business activity has been arrested and broadband take-up is growing at a faster rate than anywhere else in the UK. A total of 434 government sites are now connected together over the network.