Homes and businesses both in and around the rural village of Scourie, on the north west coast of Scotland, look set to benefit from faster wireless broadband ISP connectivity, which came after a local Salmon Farm (Loch Duart) awarded the area £14,400 from its community fund to help cover the installation.
Apparently the new service will be delivered by Scottish Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) ISP Highland Community Broadband (HCB), which charges £30 per month for access to their unlimited internet connection (plus £125 one-off for installation). The website isn’t particularly clear about how fast the service is, although in the past they’ve mentioned download speeds of 50Mbps.
The provider was setup several years ago with support from several rural Scottish Highlands communities around the Ullapool, Lochbroom, Little Lochbroom and Coigach areas. Since then they’ve added 350 subscribers with over 50 on the waiting list, spread over 400 square miles of rugged hills and jagged coastline.
Assuming all goes well then the new network is due to be rolled out “later this year.”
Mark Warrington, MD of Loch Duart, said (Northern Times):
“As a business which works in isolated communities across the Highlands and Islands, we know how vital it is for people to be connected. We are proud to be able to help connect these communities through the Salmon Pool Fund.
This funding will ensure people living in Scourie and the surrounding areas can, for the first time, access high speed internet as fibre services currently do not reach them.”
We should point out that this is by no means the first time that a community fund setup by a Salmon farm (wind farms often do something similar) has helped to fund better wireless broadband connectivity. A similar scheme has already helped to connect homes around Loch Nevis (here) and another one is working its magic for the highlands village of Drimnin (here).
