Long-term concern about rural broadband speeds

Lord Forsyth said he had been concerned about rural broadband speeds since he was president of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland in 2014-15 and made it the subject of his“presidential initiative”.

He organised a seminar bringing together people from rural areas and the farming community, ministers and BT’s Brendan Dick, and had continued to challenge Mr Dick on connectivity.

Lord Forsyth said:“Kinlochard had set up their own broadband group and were going to do their own thing while Aberfoyle were to get superfast optic cabling but people in Drumlean would not have benefitted from either scheme because the distances were too great.

“I wrote to the chair of BT saying the situation was impossible. We are paying for a service that they can’t provide.

“When there is high demand the speed plummets, I asked for my money back.

“They came back and said we have this new expensive system in which you will be able to take fibre and it will fill in the gap not just for me but for everyone in Drumlean. That was supposed to be up and running in February and March and I think the comments have come from people seeing new poles being erected in the area.”

Lord Forsyth said he had helped to arrange the meeting between the Kinlochard broadband group and Mr Dick so they could find out the“facts and costs”of further extending the cabling.

“This is something I did not need to take up,”he added.“But I felt why should it not be possible to supply Kinlochard, Balquhidder and Inversnaid with a better service. The pilot scheme they are trialling will find out whether its possible to link communities such as Drumlean.”

A spokesman for BT said:“To extend our fibre network to more communities we are trialling new delivery technologies, including at this location, such as new armoured cables for use in shallow trenches and ultra-lightweight cables for use on overhead poles.

“These are new delivery methods and when fully deployed will allow us to reach our ambition of providing 12 million homes and businesses across the UK with ultrafast broadband speeds by 2020.

“This location, as well as other locations around the UK, were identified as they the met specific criteria necessary to help us learn how these new technologies work in the field and allow us to help other communities.”