£1m broadband plan

Faster internet access could make homes and businesses in Cornwall £400 million richer and create up to 4,000 jobs in the next five years .

Cornwall Council has agreed to invest £1 million on getting faster broadband connection across the county. 

It is supporting the Cornwall Next Generation Broadband Project, with a contribution which represents just under a quarter of the project's overall cost.

The scheme plans to  spend over £130 million on better connections for developing businesses and houses by 2015. The project's supporters say it will give many people the opportunity to work from home.

Faster connections would give remote businesses quick, easy access to the internet, and allow them to take advantage of recent advances in conference calls and file sharing. Independent companies who are not yet online could use the internet to sell further afield.

Future

Cornwall's rural areas are some of the slowest in terms of internet connection in the UK, but the council has high hopes for the results of this investment: "It will make Cornwall one of Europe’s best connected regions," says Nigel Ashcroft, director of the project..

The project persuaded the council with impressive figures.  It predicted that that better internet connection could lead to: -

• 10,000 businesses using new infrastructure
• 6,000 businesses helped in some way
• 4,000 jobs created and 2,000 jobs safeguarded

Robert Hatcher, from Cornwall-based www.jumpmedia.org,explains what the funding will mean.