CLA joins campaign for broadband service- 23rd August (Surrey and Hampshire Herald Group)

THE 'BroadbandAlton' campaign to get ADSL broadband internet services installed in the local area, could benefit from a similar campaign established by the Country Land & Business Association (CLA). The CLA says that access to broadband services in rural areas must improve rapidly to stop South East rural businesses losing out to their urban counterparts, and has launched a national campaign to 'Broadband Rural Britain'. The CLA has given its newly formed campaigns unit the task of persuading the government and BT to dramatically speed up access to broadband internet services in rural areas. The CLA is urging businesses and residents in rural areas to register their interest in receiving ADSL broadband.

According to the CLA, ADSL is only obtainable through BT and yet 80 per cent of exchanges are still unable to offer broadband. BT will enable local exchanges only when sufficient demand has been proven. It is therefore critical, say the CLA, that people register their interest with an internet services provider, which will then pass on the figures to BT. Full information on how to do this is available on the BT web site, www.bt.com/openworld. CLA believes that the demand already exists and that it is not apathy on the part of the UK public, rather the mechanism for recording the demand that is at fault.

CLA regional director Andrew Davis said: "Although BT is currently going through an extensive multi-million pound promotional campaign to persuade businesses to subscribe to their high-speed broadband service, many of our members cannot gain access because of their location. "This is yet another hindrance to the development of the rural economy. Rural enterprises across the South East already have to overcome barriers such as poor public transport, restrictive planning systems and infrequent delivery services. "As the one organisation which represents business in rural areas it is equally important to rural businesses to have access to this service because it offers connection speeds up to 50 times faster than a traditional dial-up connection. "Speed of communication and the ability to do business on-line is of great importance to businesses situated in rural locations, especially in the South East. In today's market, rural businesses simply can't afford to lag behind their urban competitors in terms of their communication capabilities."

As well as aiming to talk to both BT and government, the CLA is also asking people to sign a petition in support of its calls for the government to provide incentives to encourage BT and other suppliers to provide affordable broadband in rural communities. The CLA is also calling on BT, which has the "monopoly on ADSL broadband infrastructure", to be open and transparent about the realistic availability of broadband services in rural areas. The petition may be accessed on-line at www.cla.org.uk/campaigns, or at the CLA Regional Office in Highclere. CLA will use the petition to illustrate that there is a real and immediate demand for rural broadband and aims to gather as many names as possible by the end of September before it presents the evidence to the government and to BT.

But will a rival campaign by the CLA be a help or a hindrance to what BroadbandAlton has been trying to achieve? Peter Garner, part of the driving force behind BroadbandAlton, said: "I don't see it as a rival campaign. It's reinforcing our requirement for a fast economical broadband service, delivered in a reasonable time. All the time we don't have broadband, our rural businesses will lose out to competitors in ADSL enabled parts of the country.

"The fact that an organisation such as the Country Land and Business Association has decided to get involved adds credence to the Alton campaign - it's not just a few computer enthusiasts campaigning for a faster internet - it shows that the countryside lobby realise just how important the rural campaign is for its' members. The fact that they have felt it necessary to form a Campaigns Unit emphasises the fact that they are serious.”

"However, the fact that both campaigns are isolated means that it is difficult to effectively represent the overall common aim of the campaigns to an organisation such as British Telecom. "We must both be careful not to duplicate effort, as this will be counterproductive. "We're extremely pleased with the response received from local people and businesses - it's very gratifying to see that the people of Alton and district are concerned for the welfare of their community. "We would emphasise that we need to get anyone that hasn't already registered with their internet service provider (ISP) already to do so, as this will keep the BT barometer moving upwards. "At the time of writing, we still don't have a trigger level set, and this is a cause for concern. The next step as I see it is to get BT to declare a trigger level for Alton, and then decide upon our next course of action from there. "The September date that BT have mentioned is really a major point in the campaign in this respect. It may be that BT will ask for 200 registrations, in which case I'm sure we can achieve that easily. "If they decide on, say, 650, as they have in some areas, we may have to have a rethink on how we proceed. Whatever happens, we will get broadband into Alton and district. "There is no way that we are giving up having come this far."