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: “I am committing £5million to the delivery of broadband that will be used 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.”]]>