Northern Ireland shows way for Cumbrian broadband

I recently travelled to Northern Ireland to get a glimpse of what I hope will be the future for Cumbria – small, rural businesses using superfast broadband to get ahead.

SPEED RECOVERY: John Paul Annett who runs a picture framing business benefiting from super fast broadband at Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland. SUBMITTED

On a visit organised by BT I met sales manager John Paul Annett who was pretty clear why superfast broadband has been a good thing for his business: “It is saving us an absolute fortune.”

John Paul runs a family business selling framed pictures and mirrors and from the rural backwaters of Warrenpoint, County Down, close to the Irish border, and is planning to become the biggest supplier in the UK.

His ambitions for JR Annett are helped by the recent introduction of superfast broadband in Northern Ireland which is saving him around £6,000 a month because catalogues can be supplied by email rather than printed.

John Paul has also been able to use his improved broadband connection to increase the number of pictures on his website from 50 to 1,000 and believes it is helping improve sales.

“From a point-of-sale point of view, when you’re speaking to a retailer you’re able to email a whole set of catalogues straight away and speak to them on the phone with it. With the broadband we had before you were never able to do that. You’d have to email them, wait 20 minutes, 30 minutes, ring back and they’d be away with another customer. You just couldn’t get your point of sale across.”

Many other businesses in Northern Ireland are enjoying their government’s investment in improving broadband across the province. The project set a minimum broadband speed of 2MBs for rural businesses and 10Mbs for those in urban areas. It has been funded by £18 million of public funds including European support and £30 million from BT which is contracted to deliver the strategy.

The fibre broadband is actually delivering far faster speeds and giving a helping hand to rural businesses and allowing them to compete equally with firms in Belfast and the rest of the UK.

One such success story is Energy Assessments which was set up by three university students in the picturesque seaside town of Newcastle who say their business is thriving thanks to super-fast broadband connection installed two months ago.

Director Paul Sherry, 23, said that previously they would often drive to architect’s offices to pick up building plans so they could carry out their energy efficiency checks, but now with 39Mbs downloads speeds things are a lot easier.

“Having super-fast broadband enables us to transmit data almost instantaneously, and that has helped us to win contracts that would have been beyond our reach. We’ve won a contract to certify council houses in Swindon, for example.

“It makes it easier for us to compete with the Belfast firms.”

When I spoke to Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s minister of enterprise, trade and investment, she told me that she could see many similarities between the province and Cumbria. “Cumbria is like Northern Ireland in many ways, geographically, the sparse population and role of agriculture and tourism.

“We believe broadband will help the Northern Ireland economy, particularly the SME sector and we shall look strategically at how the Cumbria pilot develops.”

Northern Ireland’s broadband revolution is also having knock-on benefits for consumers who have been able to plug into the fibre network – consumers like 83-year-old Bob Jordan who is as good an advert for superfast broadband as you are likely to get.

Always one to make the most of technology, the retired engineer was O2’s first mobile customer many moons ago and now is making full use of his 27Mbs broadband to Skype relatives, watch television, edit photos and make Christmas cards. 

“I use the internet for everything that I can use it for. All my travel I book on the internet. I bank online and the last thing that I bought online was a floor-sweeper. 

I use the internet continually... if the computer goes down for a day now I’m in trouble.”
Bob’s experience mirrored that of so many people I met in Northern Ireland enjoying superfast broadband. They are now seeing the full potential of the internet to change everyday life for the better – whether it’s about making a difference to the balance sheet at work or finding the cheapest carpet sweeper online.