08/05/2013

£5m Broadband For Rural Areas

Agriculture Minister Michelle O'Neill has announced a £5m broadband investment for rural communities in Northern Ireland.

The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) has confirmed that the next tranche of its broadband funding will specifically target areas of deprivation in rural areas.

The investment will focus on areas that currently cannot connect to fixed wire broadband, allowing third party companies to offer a broadband service to people who previously had been out of reach.

Minister O’Neill said: "I am committing £5m 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 £7.5m and will hopefully in the future see many of the some 37,000 rural premises that don’t have access to fix wire broadband getting connected."

(IT/CD)

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