Good quality infrastructure is vital to supporting businesses and
creating jobs. In today’s economy high speed broadband is an essential
tool both at work and increasingly in the home.
On Tuesday British Telecom announced that it will be installing the
latest super fast broadband technology for residents in Hythe as part
of its £2.5 billion national infrastructure investment. The work on
this upgrade in Hythe is due to be completed within the next twelve
months. Overall BT’s local network business Openreach expects to make
super-fast fibre broadband available to two-thirds of UK homes and
businesses by the end of 2015, and this investment in Hythe now is
very welcome.
BT is building the new network using a mix of technologies including
fibre to street cabinets which then connect to homes and businesses,
and fibre directly to the premises. Both provide much faster speeds
than those previously available to many UK homes and businesses. Fibre
delivered to street cabinets, currently offers download speeds of up
to 40Mbps and upstream speeds up to 10Mbps. BT Openreach is planning
to roughly double these speeds next year. Where the fibre goes
directly to homes and businesses, it will offer speeds of up to
100Mbps.
Along with Shepway Council I have been pressing for government and
business investment in high speed broadband in our community, and I
particularly welcome this initiative from BT. This follows Shepway’s
successful bid earlier in the year for a £200,000 investment from Kent
County Council’s Rural Superfast Broadband Fund. This money is being
shared between Lympne, Stanford, Greatstone, Dungeness and
Lydd-on-Sea. In addition to this Shepway’s support for a bid from the
Sandgate Community Trust, helped secure an additional £50,000
investment as part of Kent’s Community Broadband Scheme. In June
Virgin Media also announced its ultrafast 100Mb broadband service
would go on sale for the first time in Folkestone, making it one of
the fastest internet locations in Kent.
Last Friday I met with a number of different businesses across the
area to hear how they are finding the current economic environment.
First I joined a breakfast meeting with the Romney Marsh branch of the
National Farmers Union in Burmarsh. This was followed by a meeting in
Folkestone with Luke Quilter and Matt Alderwick from Sleeping Giant
Media, which specialises in helping companies improve their online
business performance. I then joined a meeting of the Shepway Economic
Regeneration Partnership at the Channel Chamber of Commerce to discuss
the Government, and local council’s plans to support businesses and
help create jobs. In the afternoon I visited the Kent Community
Recycling centre in Hawkinge, which has provided an excellent service
to local people for over twenty years and helped a number of local
good causes to raise money through recycling. On Saturday, I was also
delighted to attend the opening of the Hawkinge Fun Day at the
community centre, which is now in its seventh year and was as well
supported as ever. My congratulations go to the Parish council and
organisers for another successful event.