These response figures show the interest the KCB project has generated, but the responses to the questions “How has the lack of connectivity in KCB’s area affected you?” and “Is there any other information you’d like to add?” have been indicative of the lack of service we have been receiving.
If you haven’t already filled in the survey, you can find it here.
How has the lack of connectivity in KCB’s area affected you?
- Severely restricts what i can do i am a self employed joiner and it is very difficult to check materials and prices
- When working from the village speeds are so low and contention so high that two employees cannot work simultaneously. If an attempt is made to use VoIP at the same time as browsing or using a VPN then calls become impossible. Using basic services like Skype and screen sharing are impossible. At home downloading films or using streaming services is impossible.
- Yes it always takes too long, often by which time I give up. Very very slow even for web browsing and email. What can be done?
- I am a potential resident of Bute. Access to the mainland and its transport infrastructure is limited, but I will be able to function professionally and socially if there is modern broadband. The current situation as I seek properties on the island threatens my move. Increasing the professional & working community of the island is only possible with broadband
- Poor communication opportunities with remote family and friends. No Skype opportunities. Curtailed entertainment as download times are ridiculous. Most importantly, reduced business opportunities. Downloads speeds slow down working time to a ridiculous degree. Media cannot be viewed at any reasonable speed, meaning my working day is majorly slowed down.
- I have had to decline from web based courses that have prevented me from furthering my career. I used to be able to stream content online but now things have moved to HD in many areas it requires higher bandwith which I do not have. My children can no longer access Xbox live. As we live in a rural area this allowed them to play and interact with their friends. This has hampered their social lives and also I fear their social development. Trying to work from home can be difficult as it takes that long or is impossible to liaise with Company servers through services like citrix. Other times there is just no service at all. Our children require more and more access to online material to assist with their homework and this can be difficult at times. There are periods when we actually get speed tests as low as 0.01 meg which you just have to give up. In today’s times NGB is not a nice to have or an aspiration – IT IS A MUST.
- Having just moved house it has taken me much aggravation and over 2 months to get a restricted connection which has failed 3 times in the last month stopping me doing online banking, ordering goods and applying for jobs. – terrible service!
- Lack of ability to skype with family overseas. Inability to load content onto internet for work purposes. Frustrating buffering when listening to radio programmes or attempting to view tv via internet.
- It effects me greatly, I am unable to talk to my friends and play online game with them. None of my friends live near me so the only way I can contact them is through the internet but with the appalling service I receive, it is almost impossible to do so.
- Since the Island has Fibre the ones that do not have Fibre get a lot more brown-outs. Having to share the bandwidth in one house with 3 others (and all of them use this broadband for work) 5.5Mb isn’t good enough
- Broadband is essential for a rural business and, while I have an excellent service by satellite, it is very expensive. The bt service is unusable and looks likely to remain that way, there is no mobile coverage at all never mind 3 4 or 5G so the net result is a financial penalty to any household or business in this area.
- It’s terrible. We wish to have WLAN in the garden to attract visitors but it’s no where near fast or reliable enough. The lack of fast broadband is certainly affecting us.
- I mainly work from home as a journalist but sometimes the broadband is so slow that I cannot access my work system and if that happens on a day when I have a deadline due, I have to drive for 3 hours to get to the office to input the piece I’ve been working on. I’ve had to do this several times over the past two years. On a day to day basis, every task takes two or three times longer than it should which is frustrating and time consuming. Being able to work from home in this area is difficult, and had I known how bad broadband was when we moved here 10 years ago, we may not have done so. I feel if it isn’t improved soon, we will leave, but I also wouldn’t encourage anyone wanting to run a business which relies however slightly, on internet access (and most businesses do) to move to this area because of the poor broadband. It has a knock on effect to the whole economy whereas a decent broadband coverage could revolutionise the economy of this rural area.
- Broadband speed during the working day used to be bearable however it has now diminished to such an extent that one of my businesses had to stop trading because connection was so random.
- Satellite is very reliable, but is costly for big monthly downloads but we only use the basic package which is reasonably priced. BT copper wire service was hopeless.
- We operate a group of self catering cottages on the Estate, we are constantly being advised by our guests that their connectivity is vital for many reasons, we have lost bookings for not having broadband available. We are a business with a number of activities which require a fast, reliable service. Many working hours are lost due to being unable to shop for supplies, responding to many business requirements, Availability of clients getting in touch with mobiles etc, etc etc. We need that connection to ensure the future for [the estate]
- Yes, greatly. Modern audiences look to the internet to discover what is happening in the local area etc. Poor or no connectivity creates a challenge of local business owners directly ‘connecting’ to an audience. Increased internet availability would ensure that people who look to travel using web available content would have a far more engaged experience if they could directly discover the wealth of goings on in the area!
- Being on a 20th century broadband technology is making working from home more and more difficult as applications get more data heavy. This is a major driver for me and my family to leave the area…..Argyll is not a place to do business in the 21st century
- Yes – hard to download essential information
- Very frustrating just trying to do daily tasks. Connection is always dropping.
- I have two teenage children, who are unable to do their homework (which is requires internet). We can only use one device at the time if we need to use internet. Download speed is very slow. My family live abroad, and the connection to talk to them on skype is poor, we never use camera as it slows down connectivity. Sending or receiving files or photos is painfuly slow. I have pressed button to check speed test, and while im typing, im waiting to show me the reading, it hasn’t done that yet.
- Slow transmission of business attachments. Only able to send early in the morning.
- We are currently in process of moving our home and businesses to this address. Other properties at this location are unable to get a working broadband connection and the telephone line is unreliable. This could make our move unviable.
- slow broadband affected with bad weather
- My wife and I would find it impossible to operate a business because of the poor broadband; however we are both involved in various organisations which serve the community or are charitable in nature. This community service is made almost impossible regarding any aspects which require efficient broadband service.
- as i live and work away from home it is extremely difficult to keep in touch with family & friends and has made me reconsider staying in this area on multiple occassions.
- Speed varies all the time making uploading and downloading slow. Sometimes impossible to watch TV.
- It is so slow I don’t bother using the computer.
- Broadband via a BT landline is slow and also often cuts out, particularly at times of high demand in the area. My partner and I both work in TV. Some of that work can be done remotely, for example viewing an edit of a programme and giving edit notes and then viewing the programme again to see that the notes have worked. However work like this relies on being able to download programmes (so that you can rewind etc while viewing) at a reasonable speed. Currently broadband is too slow in Tighnabruaich to be able to do this. Programmes take hours to download, hours during which an editor is sitting doing nothing waiting for our notes. Obviously this cost money so is not feasible. This means that we cannot effectively work from Tighnabruaich which in turn means that we cannot base ourselves in the community. Although we both work currently for a large Broadcaster, we are considering setting up our own Indie TV company to make programmes and films for different Broadcasters. Ideally we would like to base this in Tighnabruaich but obviously this would not be possible unless there was a viable, fast and reliable Broadband Network.
- We run a chalet estate making on line booking and advertising essential. We struggle to download and upload advertising material and to communicate efficiently with our clients. Dealing with all the government tax agencies on line is slow and stressful as they refuse to accept that we we do not have a reliable broadband service as an excuse for lack of communication. We would like to be in a position to provide WI-FI to our 44 chalets but this is impossible with our present broadband backload. As a result we are now finding that the lack of broadband is having a detrimental effect on the price and saleability of our chalets.
- No chance of doing any business (lI am a lawyer) in Colintraive with such a poor internet connection
- Unable to take longer holidays in the area as cannot work away from home due to lack of access to systems,emails etc
- Connectivity is a mandatory service now – not like electricity and water. We use our property for weeks on end during the summer, and I frequently work from the property. Lack of connectivity makes this very difficult. My work involves receiving and transmitting reasonably sized emails and files. Aside from using the Kames Hotel there is no way to do this in the locality, and even this requires a 3 mile drive each way in order to do so. Broadband connectivity is also needed for “entertainment” and general living purposes, and visitors who use our property are discouraged by not having connectivity.
- Mobile connection patchy and no internet connection. As a holiday home owner I can only express my utmost sympathy for the full time local residents and especially business owners. The lack of connectivity is disgraceful. On a personal level it has a significant impact on the ability of my family to come to Argyll to enjoy our holiday home as I have to be available every second weekend for work reasons i.e. we would be down more often and contributing to the local economy if I could guarantee mobile reception never mind internet!
Any other information you’d like to add?
- Our ability to work from the village is seriously impacted and our current broadband provision does not facilitate modern working practise.
- There is a foolish belief that people choose to live in rural areas and should therefore accept this comes with consequences. I could write an essay on why this is insulting, prejudicial and downright stupid. Rural areas in Scandinavian countries have superfast broadband, and their engineers have to cope with polar bears.
- I have been running a business in this area for 6 years, operating on 1/4 mb – I have just sold the business partly due to the frustration of appalling connection speed and frequent breakdown of service. Having moved and become a domestic user the aggravation getting a connection and breakdown of an aging unfit for purpose service is seriously making me consider leaving the area.
- I resent paying the same as others for a service I am not able to receive. I wouldn’t like to be trying to run a business, as even ‘traditional’ businesses rely on internet in today’s world. The poor broadband service is having an increasingly detrimental impact on the local economy in today’s increasingly on-line world.
- Trying to go along with new technology like streaming is more or less impossible as the speed isn’t high enough
- Where are our elected representatives, who continually claim they are helping to get west of Scotland on the super highway?
- We did have broadband until that huge storm four years ago. We have had full surveys done by BT who eventually advised us that we were not regarded as a viable customer ??? I feel very strongly that we are regarded as merely a balance sheet number for BT ‘s results and profitability and are being treated unfairly . It is vital that our service is replaced urgently to help us to remain in the Tourist industry and promote our spectacular surroundings in that industry, promoting employment and tourism in our area
- It took at least 5 min from start speed test to finding server to tell me download speed is 0.39 Mb/s, then connection error occurred. I repeated test and then nothing happend, connection error. So if this doesnt show you how bad this broadband is, then i dont know what else will.
- Just want to have faster efficient broadband in order that we do not have to spend so much wasted time on the internet.
- It has been long established that there are substantial advantages in working from home, rather than in an urban commercial location.This applies whether it be it in a business setting or in serving the community on a voluntary basis. It is disgraceful that the advantages of superfast broadband can not be more widely distributed to rural areas.
- In Kames a mile or so up the road they have super fast broadband but we are unable to get it due to being on box 2 and no one can say when it will come. Super fast broad band in the local area has slowed ours down.
- The lack of definitive information available on the future provision of broadband from any of the government agencies involved or from BT is scandalous and would not be tolerated in any other public service provider. BT’s seeming ability to thwart community initiatives to use the new, publicly funded fibre optic network without detailing their own intentions cannot be in the best public interest.
- Avanti Satellite broadband is not great. 2Mb/sec is the peak rate and connectivity rates feel much slower with connection latency and degredation due to weather conditions. It is sufficient, but not great. Also it does not economically cater for reasonable data throughput/month. We pay 29 pounds for 6G byte capacity. If we want to consume more capacity the next price break is 40 pounds for 12G bytes. I’d like to see true 4-8Mb/sec, low latency transfers that could support streaming video (one connection is sufficient) – with scaling perhaps to 10-20Mb/sec in the future. There are in excess of 14 properties in the Ardlamont peninsula – past Kildavaig and through to Cora (overlooking Arran) all would subscribe to such a service. I can provide names and addresses if required. I believe all would have similar requirements and all would sign up for “normal” broadband fees. Of the 14 or so properties, 10 are permanently occupied.