Case Study
Ceredigion
February 2022

National Broadband prevents family’s dream move to Wales turning into a broadband nightmare

Simon Frith moved with his family to the small village of Talgarreg in Ceredigion, Wales looking for a better quality and slower pace of life. However, he soon feared that he would not only be experiencing slower pace of life but also unbearably slow broadband speeds. His previous supplier was unable to provide services and BT offered an unacceptably low speed of 1Mbps. He faced the prospect of digital isolation because of a poor internet connection until he discovered National Broadband’s services.

Choosing to live in a more peaceful and rural location should not result in digital sacrifice but Simon and his family were so close to thinking their dream move would mean finding themselves permanently trapped on the wrong side of the ‘Digital Divide’. With three children, all either school or university age, not being able to get online just wasn’t an option for Simon.

Happily, National Broadband’s bespoke 4G broadband service was very rapidly able to provide the ideal solution for Simon and his household. Within days a router was delivered and an engineer sent to install one of National Broadband’s small but highly effective external 4G antennas, set the system up and get it running. The instant result? A new broadband service delivering speeds of up to 40Mbps, providing Simon and his family with the fast and reliable connectivity they so sorely needed.

Simon Frith commented: “Us working adults would be lost without internet connection, plus it wouldn’t be fair on my children that are still in education. We also rely on the internet for entertainment, whether it’s PS4 or streaming Netflix. The assurance of a consistent broadband connection has been a huge relief. The service from National Broadband has been seamless and I’m really not sure what I would’ve done without them. There’s so much value in a good, reliable service. I’ve spoken to my neighbours who basically don’t have any internet connection. They are blown away with our connection and what we can now do as a household.”

According to Ofcom there are 55,000 properties in Wales that find themselves in a similar situation to the Frith family, with properties in rural areas over ten times more likely to experience speeds of less than 10Mbps than those in urban areas.

David Hennell, Business Development Director at National Broadband said: “Unfortunately, there is still a major gap between the digital connectivity readily available to people in cities and towns and broadband services in the countryside. This ‘Digital Divide’ has a huge real-world impact on people – if a home or business is simply unable to access a decent internet connection, this has a genuinely debilitating effect on the lives of those involved.”

He continued: “The most important thing for those in similar significantly digitally disadvantaged positions to be aware of is that they just don’t have to wait. There are already immediately available solutions that can give them the connection speed they’ve always wanted. The Welsh Assembly has also to its credit realised the significant immediate benefits that 4G- and 5G-based connectivity can bring to those with the poorest landline broadband and its Access Broadband Cymru subsidy scheme offers to cover the entire set-up costs of a better broadband connection for those who are eligible.”

See this story on the West Wales Chronicle website.