EMERGING FROM JURASSIC BUSINESS PARKS

UK plc is only just emerging from ‘dial-up dinosaur’ broadband speeds on ‘Jurassic business parks’, according to expanding superfast broadband provider WarwickNet.

Founder and chief executive Ben King said it is only forward-thinking landlords and local authorities, hungry for inward investment, that are driving the broadband agenda, saving thousands of acres of industrial and business parks from commercial extinction.

“Different parks and authorities bring different challenges and the whole process needs to be better joined up to avoid delays – even in the same postcode regions,” he said.

The recent Federation of Small Business (FSB) report revealed that more than 90 per cent of its members say superfast broadband is critical to business success, but more than 45,000 small firms are still on ‘dial-up speed’ connection.

Ben King added: “Unfortunately, many of these so-called science and technology parks are more like Jurassic parks because their broadband speed is old and lumbering towards extinction – they are simply working with dial-up-dinosaur speed in an age of data-hungry bandwidth.

“We hear stories daily of business people going home to send or receive large files because their home Internet is faster, which is a ridiculous state of affairs.

“We see our mission as rescuing companies on poorly served business parks by providing them with high quality, high speed broadband. The businesses at Cranmore can now be able to access content at much faster speeds, boosting their performance considerably.”

Mark Hitchcock, business development manager for WarwickNet, added: “For Cranmore Industrial Estate in Solihull, it has been a long road to business grade broadband, despite faster delivery at neighbouring Monkspath.

“However, thanks to our perseverance and the patience of tenants at Cranmore, we have overcome the obstacles and are now live allowing every business on the park access to our VDSL broadband, which provides up to 80Mbit/s in speed.

“I hope our perseverance shows the commitment we have to rescuing poorly connected business parks. WarwickNet will soon be providing superfast broadband to over 50 sites across the wider Midlands.”

Crescent Press, based in Stirling Park on Stirling Road on the Cranmore Industrial Estate, provides huge visual merchandising prints and graphics for international and national brands including B&Q, Carlsberg, John Lewis and Pirelli.

The company requires superfast broadband to be able to download artwork and produce pristine large prints.

Jo Matthews, a director at Crescent Press, said: “Our new broadband has now been installed and it’s running brilliantly. I tried hard not to get overly excited but watching the speed test and seeing the little pointer racing up the table was amazing, it nearly reduced me to tears! It means we run much more efficiently.”

William Frazier of Frazier’s Wine, also on the Cranmore Industrial Estate, said: “We were crippled by poor broadband both in speed (4 mb) and regular faults and outages. One December, we had no Internet for two weeks.

People were hanging lines from building to building generously sharing their Internet connections. This resulted in my taking the matter up with my local MP Lorely Burt who petitioned ministers and BT for two years, but to no avail. It was so bad that I was getting better broadband coverage through my mobile and at home than I was in the office.

The best offer we could get out of BT was a £15,000 three year contract, for an entry level leased line which to my mind was putting our business and others on the estate in a financial noose.”   For more information about WarwickNet and superfast broadband, call 02476 997 222 or visit www.warwicknet.com