East Antrim Ulster Unionist MLA Roy Beggs and Cllr Andrew Wilson, have completed a door to door broadband speed survey with the support of local residents in the Berkley Road area of Carrickfergus, following complaints of their exclusions from the superfast broadband upgrade.
Roy Beggs MLA said “We were able to identify that a number of houses in an isolated pocket around Hampton, Berkley, Heston, Finchley and Windslow which did not have access to Superfast Broadband. This was particularly hard to understand given the fact that all of the houses surrounding them had access.”
“With the support of local residents, we tried to contact each and every household in the area that we believed did not have access to the superfast broadband option. Very quickly, we identified that this was an issue of high importance to a large number of the local residents, some of whom work from their homes. Slow broadband speeds were very evident in the survey.”
Local Councillor Andrew Wilson added “We were heartened by the 40% response rates to the survey which showed significant demand for an upgrade to the Broadband survey. We have passed the result of the survey to the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, and also passed the information onto BT. We hope that the local demand for Superfast Broadband that has been demonstrated by the survey will increase the likelihood of the local cabinet being upgraded.”
Roy Beggs MLA concluded by stating that he hoped that “DETI and BT would meet the demand of local constituents who were frustrated by the current slow broadband speed and had demonstrated considerable demand for a Superfast Broadband in the survey.
