The number of businesses in Cornwall able to benefit from superfast broadband is steadily increasing, thanks to the on-going locally driven scheme, ‘Superfast Cornwall’.
The Superfast Cornwall initiative – organised by Cornwall Council in conjunction with BT, and the support of the European Union – has thus far succeeded in providing around a quarter of residences in the Cornwall area with the opportunity to access high speed broadband.
The £132 million project has as its aim the extension of superfast broadband outlay to a minimum of 80% of homes and businesses across Cornwall and the Scilly Isles by 2024.
Commenting on the programme, its director, Nigel Ashcroft, said there were already ‘many examples of firms and individuals transforming their businesses and their lives with superfast broadband’.
One business to benefit from access to the new high speed broadband roll-out in the area has been promotional banner and flag supplier, South West Flags; whose manager in charge of sales, Peter Williams, described superfast broadband access as ‘fantastic news for our business’:
‘It will save us time and money and help us to grow’, he said.
Mr Williams’s views have been replicated across the country where similar high speed broadband expansion has taken place.
Superfast broadband has of course enabled businesses to access large data files and pass complex information to customers both quickly and efficiently.
It has also, however, helped facilitate the introduction of IP (internet protocol) business telephony services, such as VoIP (voice over internet protocol) for many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the country.
Changing business phone services to IP telephony and business VoIP-enabled channels, either by wholesale replacement; or through the more cost-effective alternatives of either session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking, or the services of a host business VoIP provider or VoIP reseller, has been shown to affect both greater phone line scalability and lower phone costs.
