Tory MP Stephen O’Brien vows to solve rural broadband speed problem

Feb 11 2010 by Ben Coulbeck, Chester Chronicle

SLOW broadband speeds in rural areas of Cheshire will become a problem of the past, according to Tory MP Stephen O’Brien.

The shadow health minister, who currently holds the Eddisbury seat, claims that his party will deliver fast internet connections to rural homes and businesses by 2017.

It comes after countryside-based constituents contacted Mr O’Brien to complain about broadband speeds on their computers.

He said: “I have been contacted by a large number of people in our area, rural businesses and home workers, who are thoroughly fed up because they are unable to access reliable broadband services which are sufficiently fast.

“It is important that rural businesses in our area can maximise the potential that high speed broadband can offer their enterprises and compete with their urban counterparts on a level playing field.”

Mr O’Brien added that sewer-systems would be investigated to find out whether broadband cables can be laid. Replacing over-head copper-wire lines with fibre optic cables is also a possibility.

John Hammond, who manages the Kelsall Community website, said that broadband speeds fell well short of what is possible.

“The government's present policy to get rural Britain up to 2Mbps by 2012 is quite unambitious when compared with the 100Mbps that is presently available in Japan and South Korea,” he said.

“The Tory policy of 100Mbps by 2017 is better but is still unambitious. What on earth will rural communities do over the next seven years?

“In the interim mobile internet may be the saviour for some people, although I haven’t achieved anywhere near mobile providers’ quoted download speeds of 7.2Mbps”.