30/08/2006 - Kilmalouaig

After accumulating surplus funds over the last few months to acquire the equipment to cover the Kilmalouaig area, Tiree Community Broadband is now in a position to roll out its service to homes around Kilmalouaig and Balevuillin. We are now awaiting the delivery of the necessary equipment to be installed on the high ground at Kilmalouaig, which should in theory offer coverage as far as Balevuillin, provided a clear view of the transmitter can be obtained from the house (including the gable end) requiring coverage.

As has been mentioned before, the cost of each installation in terms of equipment alone is some 500 pounds, so if you have the possibility of getting a service through BT, as some houses in this area can, could you please take it. As we are keen to spend our limited resources on those households that have no chance of getting broadband coverage from anywhere else. If you have already expressed interest in getting a service and still require it then there is no need to contact us, but if you want to be added to the list please call Mark Vale on 2200570. We would also happily welcome any volunteers willing to help with installations.

In the last few months we have replaced the equipment handling our broadband feed located in An Iodhlann, which has markedly improved the system’s reliability after a period of interrupted service we believe was caused by work by BT earlier in the summer in the Scarinish exchange. We are also planning to increase the bandwidth on the system to improve it’s speed and capacity. Which will involve the acquisition of some additional equipment and negotiations with our current provider Inverness based Scotnet and other providers to lift the systems capacity to 8MB at a better price than we are currently paying. The expanded bandwidth accommodating the growing use of the system by subscribers and the introduction of new subscribers.

At present the broadband company has 43 subscribers generating revenues of around 800 pounds a months with costs of broadband feed and administration/maintenance averaging 650 pounds a months. So it is unfortunately taking us time to accumulate sufficient funds to acquire more equipment, but it is our objective to try and put everyone on Tiree who cannot get it from another source, on broadband.