Downpatrick Councillor Colin McGrath, a South Down SDLP assembly candidate, has said that there must be significant upgrades to rural broadband provision to ensure rural communities are on a par with their urban counterparts.
Commenting, Cllr McGrath said: “Increasingly many facets of everyday life are undertaken online such as social media, banking and shopping.
“However, increasingly, government agencies are expecting matters to be undertaken online too such as application for rural grants, submission of reports and statistics and the massive bureaucracy expected by DARD and European bodies.
“But how can this be completed if rural areas in particular don’t have proper broadband connections?
“The capacity for broadband speed is often determined by a customer’s distance from the communications box – which is fine in urban areas where there is one every few streets feeding hundreds of homes but what of the rural roads and lanes where there may only be one house every half mile?
“There are now instances too where BT are not allowing existing rural customers access increased speeds rather allowing them to remain connected to older slower connections and this seems totally unfair.
“If we are to see our rural communities develop, if we are to see our farming and small villages and hamlet communities sustained and grow, then we must service them with adequate broadband speeds and allow them access to an even playing field.
“I have written to BT and asked for a review of some of their practices and will pursue the issue of rural broadband connections for our rural areas into the future,” added Cllr McGrath.
