Quest for south mainland superfast broadband

BROADBAND users in Shetland’s south mainland are the latest to form a community group to improve the local service.

Residents from Gulberwick to Sandwick have formed a group called Quasarnet (Quarff to Sandwick Rural Network) to generate interest in connecting to Shetland Telecom’s new fibre optic cable running between Lerwick, Scalloway and Sandwick.

The move demonstrates continuing frustration with Shetland’s slow broadband speeds in an area where they range from a snail pace 0.5mbps in Quarff to 5-6mbps in Sandwick, as strong as it gets in rural areas. However even where the bandwidth is strong, it is inconsistent.

Sandwick resident Guy Smith, who works for the council’s Shetland Telecom project and is supporting Quasarnet, said he was surprised at how many people turned up at a meeting last month to test the level of local interest.

He said: “People’s main gripe is that at 10am you might get five meg, but at 6pm it can be down to half a meg. You want something reliable if you’re skyping with the kids or streaming BBC iPlayer.

“We’re not looking for lightning fast speeds, just something that’s reliable and future proofed.”

Quasarnet are now putting together a flyer to check how much support there is in the community, especially when people factor in the cost of connecting a superfast broadband connection of up to 100mbps to their home.

As a community group Quasarnet might be able to receive up to 90 per cent in grant funding for the capital works involved, but paying a provider to hook up their house could cost around £25 per month.

Other communities in Shetland are currently in talks with Shetland Broadband about improving their broadband connections, including West Burrafirth, Out Skerries and Fetlar.

Shetland Broadband’s Ian Brown said the new fibre optic cable would create many more opportunities for his company to provide a reliable service for remote communities.

Shetland Telecom hope to start testing their fibre optic cable by the end of this month.