Caithness Chamber Call for Businesses To Get In Touch Re Broadband Rollout

16th October 2013

Caithness Chamber of Commerce has been set into action following announcments about the rollout of rual braodband as Caithness will not see any benefit for some time yet.

The chamber has contacted their meber businesses but would be interested to hear from any Caithness business that thinks slow broadband is affecting their business.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) this week announced the first phase of their rural broadband project which is being rolled out to Inverness-shire and Moray in early 2014. We and other stakeholders were led to believe that Caithness would feature early in the roll-out of this project which would enable this area to access next-generation broadband. As many of you know, lack of adequate connectivity is hampering business.

However after further investigations we have found that Caithness doesn't feature in the plans until July - December 2015. We find this unacceptable and have written to the Chief Executive of HIE, Alex Paterson, expressing our dismay at this decision and asking for clarification on the rationale behind these decisions.

We were heavily involved with our IT members in lobbying for this area in the early days of discussion and had been led to believe as early as last June, along with other local stakeholders, that we were still going to feature early in the roll-out plans. We will be reconvening a meeting of the IT group to discuss our approach to these developments.

If your business is being seriously constrained by poor broadband speeds and available, affordable connections, I would appreciate it if you could let us know. When doing so, please can you tell us what broadband speeds you are able to access, who your provider is and how it is constraining your business.

Anyone interested in the superfast broadband roll-out can keep up to date on a new Scotland-wide website - http://www.scotlandsuperfast.com - being introduced by the Scottish Government.

Send any details or information to -
David Swanson Marketing & Communications Officer
Caithness Chamber of Commerce
Naver Business Centre, Naver House, Naver Road, Thurso, Caithness, KW14 7QA
01847 890076
info[AT]caithnesschamber.com;
www.caithnesschamber.com;