Avonline Supports The Welsh Assembly in Encouraging Those Living in Rural Not-Spots in Wales

In July this year, The Welsh Assembly announced that any house or business that cannot get broadband or receives a connection which is consistently less than 512Kb per second will qualify for financial assistance of up to £1,000. The Assembly Government has recently said it has approved more than 345 applications, but this is considered by most industry experts to be a disappointing take up rate and some have suggested that with around 30,000 Welsh homes in areas with no access to broadband, at the existing rate of approvals it will take more than 28 years to bring broadband to all of rural Wales.

The UK's leading rural satellite broadband provider

Avonline is the UK's leading rural satellite broadband provider and one of the suppliers supporting The Welsh Assembly's scheme with its market leading 3.6Mbps download and 384Kbps upload Tooway Satellite Broadband service covering 100% of Wales from just £24.99 per month. Avonline has already provided 400 quotes to Welsh customers as part of the scheme and is currently installing about 5 customers per week in rural Wales.

The Welsh Assembly continues to urge rural householders to take advantage of the assistance they are offering through the scheme. Deputy First Minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones, said "The Assembly Government is determined to find ways of opening up access for the relatively few areas in Wales that remain unable to benefit from broadband services. If Wales is to have a competitive infrastructure then access to broadband is vital. This scheme will allow businesses and individuals to get online and develop our knowledge economy."

The Welsh Assembly

To support the Welsh Assembly, Avonline is committed to helping get the message out to rural Wales and is about to embark on a series of Road Shows to help publicise the opportunities offered by the Broadband Support Scheme. To show how Avonline can provide customers in rural areas with a fast, reliable and good value service, Avonline are taking their purpose built mobile unit on the road. Together with a Canadian Technology company, C-Com, Avonline has developed this mobile solution for demonstrating their Tooway Satellite Broadband product. The VW van has a collapsible satellite dish installed on its roof and at the press of a button the dish is deployed and in 4 minutes the system will locate the satellite, align itself and optimise, or fine tune, the reception providing broadband browsing anywhere. Its first stop is this Friday in the car park of the Focus store in Llanelli.

Craig Roberts, Avonline's Broadband Services Manager said, "We continue to campaign for wider access to broadband for rural communities and support The Welsh Assembly's Broadband Support Scheme".

He continued, "We already have a strong customer base across Wales who rely on our broadband service and we're looking forward to getting out to the Welsh community to show them how easy it is for them to get fast reliable broadband services through satellite."

Satellite dish plus a modem

Avonline's broadband installation consists of a satellite dish plus a modem. In addition, the Tooway service has the ability to deliver a money saving telephone service (VoIP) and now has the added value option of receiving Freesat High Definition digital television services from the same satellite dish