Making Highland Broadband Happen

I've responded to the UK Government’s Digital Britain Consultation with detailed proposals on how Super Fast Broadband can be delivered to 100% of highland communities.

The UK Government proposes to use a 50p per month level on every landline to create a £1bn fund which will be used to leverage telecoms industry investment in superfast “Next Generation Access” broadband technology into areas where the market, left to itself, will not deliver.

Many rural areas of the Highlands lack decent broadband services and suffer badly in terms of economic, community and social development as a result. Left to itself, the telecoms market will not deliver to these communities.

There has been a lot of negative nonsense talked recently - much of it coming from the LibDems who really don't seem to understand the issue at all - about how there are no solutions to this, problem. But I think the government’s Digital Britain Strategy is a real opportunity. It will make substantial funds available to support investment in broadband infrastructure for rural communities. The question is how best to use it.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with Peter Peacock MSP to develop our response. We’ve now put forward detailed proposal on how reliable, superfast broadband can be delivered to 100% of rural communities in the Highlands. In our proposals, we make clear that we need a regional solution to a regional problem, not the “one size fits all” solutions beloved of the big telcos. We argue that rural communities should be able to work “outside in” developing community-owned solutions which can then be joined into the national fibre network.

This approach has already been used to deliver high-quality broadband services in rural communities in the UK, such as at Alston Moor in Cumbria. Across the UK and Europe, there are now many examples of social enterprises, cooperative and community-owned schemes exploiting fibre and wireless technology to deliver high quality broadband services to rural communities. We must start to look in detail at how those models could be applied in the Highlands.

UK and European funding streams will soon be available. We need the UK and Scottish Governments to work together and with local communities to make sure they are used effectively.

This kind of investment in the future economy is what the Labour Party stands for and I’m determined to play my part in making that happen.

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Hilltrack Campaign

Signed up for Sarah Boyack and Peter Peacock's campaign to bring the construction of hill tracks under better control. New intrusive mountain tracks on the Scottish uplands are damaging our landscapes. Hill walkers, ramblers and members of the public are up in arms about the problem. While farmers and crofters need to construct some tracks for their purposes mostly on lower lying land, action is urgently needed.

See http://hilltrackscampaign.org.uk/

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Broadband in the Highlands

I grabbed the opportunity to meet Stephen Timms MP on Monday, when he was in Scotland on a "research" visit in his role as Minister for Digital Britain. I caught up with him in Alloa and put the case for Broadband in the Highlands.

The Digital Economy Bill that Stephen is currently piloting through Westminster make a commitment to guarantee access to 2MB Broadband to every home in the UK. That won't do much for rural areas like the Highlands, however. Its still dependent on BT wires, so you will get a connection but if you live 15 miles up a strath the performance will be woeful. What we need is Next Generation Access - NGA - based on high speed optical fibre and wireless technology and offering speeds up to 100MB with assured service quality.

NGA could transform the rural economy.

The problem of course is that the telcos - BT, Virgin, Cable & Wireless etc - won't put the infrastructure into sparsely populated areas as there is not enough commercial return. Across the UK and northern Europe however, there are community-driven programmes springing up - based on mutual and social enterprise business models - which are finding ways to deliver NGA when government steps in with some seed funding to get the "backhaul" infrastructure installed

I think we really need to look at these models in the Highlands.

The Digital Economy Bill is proposing a 50p per month levy - just £6 per year - on every BT landline to go towards creating a £1bn fund to invest in just such infrastructure. What we need to do is make sure the Highlands get a fair share of that investment and that its directed to delivery models that make sense here. That will need communities, Highland Council, Holyrood and Westminster to work together. No mean feat!

Peter Peackock MSP has been doing great work on this, and I will support him from Westminster in due course.

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Highland Broadband

Great to hear today that Highland Labour MSP Peter Peacock has secured a commitment from the Scottish Government to invest more in Broadband Services for the Highlands. See here. When added to the investment already planned by the UK Government through its Digital Britain Strategy this will go a long way to ensuring homes and small businesses across the Highlands have access to the fast, secure and reliable Internet services which are so essential to building sustainable communities. For once, equal credit to the SNP and Labour!

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Broadband in the Highlands

I was very pleased to read Peter Peacock MSP's press release today which continues to argue Highland Labour's case for comprehensive broadband service provision in the Islands and right across our region, not just in urban areas.

Local Post Office services face cut backs and privatisation. Print media circulation continues to decline and the press seem ever more interested in political scandle and tittle tale than reporting serious news. Local shops are closing in the face of overwhelming competition from superstores.

Faced with all of this, we all need assured access to high quality internet services so we can keep in touch with friends, access a wide range of news and political views and support local businesses who sell great products on line. Broadband access is a necessity in assuring strong sustainable communities across the region. The regulator needs to be firm with BT and other providers to make sure they recognise their essential role in this.

I wish Peter well in making his case with OfCom.

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Inverness West;the final push

Out campaigning again on Saturday in Kinmylies with our candidate Andrew Mackintosh and his team. A great turnout of party workers and supporters, MSPs and Councillors, despite all the bad stuff in the media about smears and expenses. Getting out and knocking on doors to show people the party still cares about ordinary people still matters. What matters most to people in the real world is jobs, schools and sorting local problems.

The LibDems and SNP are putting out the message that the election is a straight fight between them. I think that is political arrogance, from two parties who are great at making promises but don't deliver. Local voters are raising issues like the TLR, anti-social behaviour and traffic where they are fed up with words and want action.

The Labour vote is solid, and I think we might surprise a few of the pundits.

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