Wireless and satellite broadband providers will provide the last 5 per cent of Northumberland with a broadband solution.
This should result in those rural residents getting faster speeds than the basic at least 2Mbps service promised under the local BDUK (Broadband Delivery for the UK) plan.
Avonline, Q-Sat and Briskona have been selected by the local authorities under the iNorthumberland scheme. This £1.3 million loan fund will see the companies able to apply for a cash loan to set up infrastructure and services, with the money being repaid by subscriptions over the years.
Avonline and Q-Sat are providers of satellite broadband and Briskona will provide a wireless broadband service. Households after a decent family-sized service from these ISPs will be looking at paying around £35/month.
Local paper NE Business says that these services will provide speeds ‘in excess’ of 20Mbps. But given that satellite broadband currently can only deliver speeds up to 20Mbps, we’re taking this news with a pinch of salt.
Avonline does offer 20Mbps download speeds as standard across its many packages, with daytime usage caps ranging from 10GB, 20GB, 30GB and unlimited, with unlimited usage available between the hours of 11:00pm-7:00am.
Q-Sat’s packages provide top download speeds of 10Mbps with uploads of 1Mbps for £34.99/month on the Family service. While there are daytime usage caps of up to 15GB, there’s free usage overnight, between 2:00am-8:00am. Avonline’s Tooway Large package costs £34.95/month.
Briskona offers a top level Home Premium service for £34.99/month which gives you a download speed of 8Mbps, uploads of 2Mbps and unlimited monthly data.
We’ve contacted Avonline, Q-Sat and Briskona for more information and are waiting to hear back.
Image credit: Flickr user Glen Bowman
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