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Better broadband will benefit rural businesses

Superfast broadband will massively benefit businesses in Cumbria and North Yorkshire, according to the areas’ respective Chambers of Commerce.

Yesterday, when introducing the Comprehensive Spending Review, chancellor George Osborne announced that residents in North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Hertfordshire and the Highlands would benefit from £530m worth of investment in rural broadband services.

As a result 2m homes will have access to a high-speed broadband network within the next four years.

During his hour long speech, Mr Osborne said: “It will help encourage the growth of our creative industries as a key part of the new economy we are seeking to build.”

Suzanne Caldwell, enterprise development manager for Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, believes faster broadband would attract a lot more businesses to the area. Particularly as broadband speed affected urban, as well as rural areas of Cumbria.

She told SeekBroadband.com: “The speed of broadband is an issue for a number of firms in the county. Obviously improving that is going to put them in a much more competitive situation as they will be able to operate a lot more effectively.”

Ian Williams, director of policy at Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, described the announcement as “great news” for businesses in the area.

In a statement to SeekBroadband.com, he said: “Super-fast broadband is vital for connecting those in rural or remote areas to the rest of the UK and beyond. It ensures that businesses in North Yorkshire are able to compete with businesses in cities and we hope it will encourage economic growth in rural areas.”

Super-fast broadband will be deployed in 27 market towns, with 11,400 businesses and 220,000 consumers benefitting from the move, the Chancellor said.

According to the CSR £300m of the total budget set aside will come from the BBC TV license fee.

Both BT and Virgin Media have stated their interest in participating in the four pilot projects.  BT is spending £2.5bn on a high-speed network that should cover 4m of the UK’s 26m homes by the end of this year. The infrastructure should reach 17m homes by 2015.

In a statement Virgin said: “There’s a real opportunity to look at each area and ensure any public money is used to help find the best possible solution to benefit the local community.”

The Comprehensive Spending review also revealed that a significant sum will be allocated towards fighting cyber crime. This follows a report by The National Security Council has that classified cyber crime as one of the four highest priority risks to the UK.

Titled ‘A strong Britain in an age of uncertainty’, the 39-page document evaluated all levels of national defences. It claimed that the four highest priority risks for the next five years included “international terrorism, cyber attack by other states and by organised crime and terrorists”.

However the Spending Review report stated: “The government is implementing a major new £650 million National Cyber Security Programme to deliver a step change in our cyber security capabilities across Government, managed from within the Cabinet Office.”