O’Neill Announces £5million Broadband Investment for Rural Areas

The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) is investing £5million in rural broadband, targeting areas that currently cannot connect to fixed wire broadband, and putting in place the infrastructure required to allow third party companies to offer a broadband service to people in rural hot spots. Minister O’Neill said:xa0“I am committing £5million to the delivery of broadband that will bexa0used exclusively to target rural areas of high deprivation across the north that currently have no fixed wire infrastructure to access broadband. I hope that this funding will stimulate companies supplying broadband to get out into rural areas and use this infrastructure to provide access for rural dwellers and businesses to use broadband. I want this investment to stimulate rural businesses and give rural dwellers a wider access to services via broadband. “This investment will bring my Departments total investment in rural broadband to £7.5million and will hopeful in the future see many of the some 37,000 rural premises that don’t have access to fix wire broadband getting connected.”]]>