Penrith and Border MP leads broadband access bid (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Penrith and Border MP leads broadband access bid

12:30pm Friday 3rd September 2010 in

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A CUMBRIAN MP’s fight to bring broadband internet access to the region’s most isolated communities will step up a gear when he hosts a pioneering conference in Penrith later this month.

Penrith and the Border MP Rory Stewart hopes to use his conference at the Rheged Centre on September 18 to advance his campaign to bring a reliable 2MB connection speed to the constituency by the end of 2012.

The conference will be opened by Broadband Minister Ed Vaizey and speakers include BT internet boss Bill Murphy and Bill Davies, executive director of Blackberry RIM, and representatives of numerous community projects already delivering high speed broadband, like Cybermoor in Alston. Mr Stewart said: “The geography of my constituency is extremely challenging. It is the most sparsely populated and the most rural constituency in England. Its residents and businesses face a daily struggle with communications and distance. But my constituency has a higher proportion of self-employed people than any other constituency in the UK and we had exceptional economic growth last year. High speed broadband will play a vital role in our bid to overcome the economic, demographic and social challenges we face in Cumbria.”

Mr Stewart highlighted the case of the mail-order travel clothes business, Travelling2 in Morland, which relies on its website for around 25 per cent of its turnover.

Travelling2 owner Freddy Markham said: “The office download speed is 0.32 Mbps and the upload speed 0.36 Mbps, a long way short of the theoretical speeds of 8Mbps and 6 Mbps respectively. We need fast upload speeds to manage our website, upload photos and transfer data. We need a Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL) for our internet but this is not available and there is no date when it will be. As broadband gets faster for the rest of the country, how long will we have to wait?”

Dr. Stuart Burgess CBE, chairman of the commission for rural communities, said: “I cannot think of anywhere more appropriate for the conference. The Penrith and the Border constituency covers an area that is 97% rural and 63% uplands, posing considerable geographic challenges to overcome in order to deliver more reliable and higher capacity broadband services. But the potential benefits are enormous.”

For more information on the conference and case studies of people in Penrith and the Border who need faster broadband connection visit www.rorystewart.co.uk/broadband.