SMALL businesses located in Roe Valley Enterprises in Limavady's Aghanloo industrial estate can look forward to faster broadband speeds following a new partnership arrangement with telecommunications provider B4B Telecoms.
The two parties have agreed on an ambitious plan to deliver a dedicated ‘Fibre To The Premises’ solution to companies within the park.
Up to now the broadband download speed in the estate has been stalled at around two megabytes per second, so more than 25 businesses came together to campaign for increased speed and have now finally been able to sign up for the new service.
Roe Valley Enterprises chief executive Martin Devlin said: “Fast broadband speed is now effectively a utility service, as vital to small businesses as electricity and water, but unfortunately businesses in some parts of the north west had been left behind.
"But working with B4B we identified sufficient numbers of tenant companies who needed faster broadband and we went down the route of the Rural Broadband Voucher Scheme which opened up new possibilities. We are delighted with the outcome.”
Tommy O’Hagan from B4B said: "The 'Fibre to the Premises' solution means the estate now will have access to 1GBps services, with many tenants choosing to avail of the 100Mbps download. These speeds far surpass those available under the existing network and it represent a huge leap forward for these businesses in Roe Valley.”
Meanwhile Belfast-based Connect Telecom has been named as the only Northern Ireland company to be awarded Total Communications Partner status by mobile giant Vodafone.
The elite status, introduced by Vodafone as part of its new UK Partner Programme, is now the highest Vodafone accreditation and is achieved by distribution partners that have demonstrated outstanding levels of customer excellence and the highest expertise in both Vodafone fixed and mobile solutions.
Scott Ritchie, director at Connect Telecom, which this year celebrates its 10th year in the business telecoms sector in Northern Ireland, said: “Vodafone’s new Partner Programme has been designed to meet the changing communication requirements of business customers which no longer stop at fixed lines and mobiles, and therefore rewards partners which have demonstrated the ability to sell across multiple product and service segments.
“As a partner we have direct access to the very best levels of service from Vodafone support teams which will allow us to deliver solutions to our customers more efficiently and faster than other Vodafone partners.”
