Western Isles broadband scheme goes £1.5m over-budget

Thursday 26 June 2008

A scheme that was set up to bring high-speed wireless internet to the Western Isles for an estimated cost of £6.5 million has been revealed to have gone £1.5 million over-budget. Despite an initial quote estimated by the Highlands Islands Enterprise (HIE) and a deadline date of sometime in 2003, the project has not only gone seriously over budget but it has also now running over five years past its schedule.

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The Connected Communities Service, also known as ConCom was granted funds by HIE, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, the Scottish Government and the European Regional Development Fund in 2003, although then it was thought that the project would cost a total of £1.5 million. ConCom only has 930 customers on its books, meaning that after the total amount spent on the Western Isles project, each customer leaves the company out of pocket by £8,575 per household.

Residents of Northbay in Barra are up in arms over the body's decision to continue with ConCom rather than upgrade to a BT exchange and in protest, Northbay's BT telephone exchange has been held to ransom by members of the community in protest. "If you are doing something important on dial-up, it may take two hours but at least you will get it done," said Northbay resident George MacLeod told the Stornoway Gazette. "Wireless does not work here. BT trialled it years ago and said it was expensive, cumbersome and bound to fail. But the BT offering (of landline broadband) has come on by leaps and bounds." So far a solution to the problem hasn't been offered. Source: Stornoway Gazette