Plans to roll-out better community broadband to east of Badenoch back on track
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Plans to roll-out community broadband to hard to reach places in Badenoch appear to be back on track after an unscheduled hiatus.
Badenoch Broadband representatives met with Highland Council officials on the roof of Kingussie High School on Tuesday to discuss installation of their next repeater mast.
Good progress had been made with the project to provide good quality broadband to the east of the area up until last November when the council suddenly stopped dialogue without explanation with the community interest company.
But after the Strathy was contacted by project leaders and approached the local authority, it appears the expansion of the broadband network is on the move again.
Director Robert Cumming said: “Everything is now going ahead full steam. This will allow us to provide a much better service and Highland Council is being very helpful after this delay. They have been apologetic and said that they have had a very busy period. This is a good news story for the strath.
“As well as providing service to these communities it will mean that we can move a huge amount of data up and down the strath in the future which will be of benefit to all of our users.”
Project leaders have been keen to roll-out the service to communities on the eastern fringe of the strath including to Ruthven, Drumguish, Farr, Balnespick, Inveruglas and Insh.
In order to do this a repeater mast is required on the roof at Kingussie High School. The network uses point to point mast and the school occupies a crucial location to reach out eastwards. It is in the line of sight from Badenoch Broadband’s repeater mast at the town’s train station and there is no way around the high school other than building a 60 metres high tower which is a non-starter.
Mr Cumming had earlier explained they had been in productive talks with the council up to the Autumn when they ‘suddenly stopped speaking to them for no obvious reason’ even though a legal draft agreement was nearing completion.
The wall of silence was putting the roll-out in doubt due to the May time limits on their Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme award which is funding the work.
Mr Cumming and network manager Iain Stevenson have now met with the council’s property and facilities management team. Updating the Strathy yesterday, Mr Cumming said: “We went into quite a lot of detail about how our installation will proceed.
“There are a few technical issues to be resolved around fire and lightning protection but hopefully nothing insurmountable. All in all it was a very positive step forward.”
A council spokesperson said: “We are currently providing assistance to establish a suitable location for the installation of a small transmitter dish which will help to deliver community broadband in Badenoch.”
Badenoch Broadband was founded in 2010 and has been operating since 2012 providing a service to areas that previously had little or no broadband.
The diverse nature of the Highlands means their subscribers include sporting estates, castles, hotels, gin distilleries as well as holiday homes, rental properties as well as local residents and other businesses.
The Badenoch Broadband website states: "Connection to our network has also allowed local business people to work from home and holiday home owners have told us they are able to stay longer and work from their properties, something they were previously unable to do due to poor connectivity and speed.
"This has had the knock on effect of reducing fuel consumption and travel time, boosting local spend and allowing local people more quality home time.
"Without the co-operation of the landowners and volunteers, no mast would have been built and no signal would have been transmitted.
"We could not have achieved what we have without those who gave permission for equipment to be sited on their land, provided electricity for masts and those hearty volunteers that hauled heavy equipment up hills in bad weather through midge infested bogs and snow.
"Our success is due to all those involved as well as our own community for giving us the chance to prove our worth. We know that anything is possible if enough thought, discussion and research is given to a problem.
"As for the future we are constantly improving our equipment and looking for sites to extend our signal to those who might still be using a dial-up service – yes they still exist."
Find out more about Badenoch Broadband here.
