In a shock new twist, the village of Iwade has chosen to go both ways and potentially opened up a solution which may help many rural areas gain superfast broadband services in the future.

It’s clear that to go from ‘Not Spot’ to ‘Hot Spot’ you need to more than just change broadband deals.

Villagers in Iwade, Kent have long been keen to improve their broadband provision and were frustrated at being left out of BT’s plans to introduce superfast services across the UK.

After learning that nearby Sittingbourne was having its exchange upgraded to deliver up to 40Mb broadband services villagers in Iwade called a meeting with BT to present the case for their own upgrade.

The two key areas of the bid were the widespread support for the upgrade amongst villagers as well as the promise of £13,000 worth of funding from the County Council.

The effect of the grant was to unlock a further £62,000 from BT themselves, allowing Iwade to receive up to 40Mb services, an option that was described previously by BT as commercially, ‘very challenging.’

Chief Executive of BT Steve Robertson said that it was positive that small communities could raise their own cash to get online since broadband does require a lot of initial investment.

The BT executive also pointed out that BT hadn’t decided where they were going to upgrade yet, hinting that they were open to lobbying from locals concerned about rural broadband access.

All this points to more collaborations between councils, local organisations and BT in the future, as long as funds which can help deliver broadband projects to rural communities continue to be available.

In the meantime, very rural communities will have little choice but to turn to expensive cutting-edge alternatives such as Tariam satellite broadband.

Neil Hawkins is a staff writer for a site that helps users to compare broadband deals. The site also has articles to help users with conundrums such as whether they should go with Sky or Virgin.

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