News / Superfast broadband will change isles’ fate
SHETLAND Telecom, the council funded company connecting the isles to the Faroese fibre optic cable, is destined to “change the fate of the islands”, according Michael Fourman, Professor of Computer Systems, at the University of Edinburgh.
Professor Fourman gave the keynote speech at a four hour community partnership summit into ‘Connectivity in the 21st century, held in the Clickimin Leisure Complex, on Tuesday afternoon.
He praised the council for its foresight and initiative in investing in high speed broadband, as “connectivity drives innovation”.
Shetland Telecom hopes to complete laying the cable between Lerwick and Sandwick by June this year and be operational from Lerwick by the summer.
However, the ultimate aspiration is to provide every community in the isles with access to high speed broadband over the next few years, though no investment decision on such a project has yet been made. Councillors will be presented with more information on the options available at the next development committee meeting.
The summit, attended by around 60 people, heard from a number of businesses and public agencies how better broadband services could generate economic, educational and health benefits for islanders.
Professor Fourman also chairs the Digital Scotland working group of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE). The group was established in response to the publication of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report in 2009, which had been widely criticised for not going far enough.
In its Digital Scotland report of October last year, the RSE said Scotland could not afford to be left behind and called for national and local governments to take the lead in providing the fibre infrastructure “in the national interest”.
Warning that within two years rural India would have better broadband access than much of Scotland, Professor Fourman called on the new Scottish government to “assume strategic responsibility for the rollout of fibre to Scotland’s unconnected regions”.
He said: “Where there is access to fibre, Scotland’s communities have already demonstrated that local action can build local access networks.
“Orkney and Shetland, both lucky enough to be sitting on an existing intercontinental fibre, are busy extending their fibre network to roll out super-fast broadband.
“The internet has demonstrated its power to transform the ways we live and work, and it’s clear that a fibre backbone is essential.
“It enables individuals who do get connected to be on an equal playing field whether they are in Shetland, whether they are in London, in New York or India.”
He added: “What is happening here in Shetland is establishing the core infrastructure as a public good, and then hopefully we will see it operated in a way that maximises the public good but will allow lots of entrepreneurial activity enabled by that investment.
“Economic, health and educational opportunities are all enhanced by connections to the internet. But it goes deeper than that, and we are seeing some of that playing out in North Africa and the Middle East now, where it provides freedom of expression and exchange of information that is fundamental to human freedom, and that goes much deeper that the societal benefits we see here.”
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