Ahead of a key meeting with the Director of BT in Wales, a local AM says that the company needed to do a lot more to help the residents and businesses of rural Mid Wales.
Montgomeryshire Assembly Member, Russell George, made the comments ahead of this week's (19th March) critical meeting with the telecommunication company’s chief in Wales, Ann Beynon. A range of issues will be discussed including how Mid Wales will be prioritised for the roll-out of superfast broadband and why there have been such long delays to upgrade exchanges and repair faults.
The meeting comes on the back of Mr George raising local concerns with the First Minister in the National Assembly for Wales. In February, the AM highlighted that there was now a two year delay to upgrade a number of telephone exchanges in Powys, denying homes and businesses higher broadband speeds. He asked what representations had the First Minister made to BT about this pressing issue, as it was having a considerable detrimental impact on the local economy.
Commenting, Mr George said:
"I hope to have some open and frank discussions with BT’s Welsh Director because as I see it, levels of service delivery and service performance in Mid Wales have been well-below par.
"While BT provides its own range of products, it also installs and maintains the core infrastructure that other telecoms providers rely on to deliver their services to a variety of residential and business customers; if that infrastructure is compromised or fails, a lot of people are affected.
"The problem regarding BT’s upgrading of Welsh exchanges for example, is a very long-standing one.
"Back in December 2011, BT announced that it was undertaking a programme of work in Powys that would see 25,000 homes and businesses in towns like Llanidloes and Newtown receiving superfast broadband by the summer of 2012.
"However since then, there have been continued delays. Initially, I was told that the upgrade would take place by 2012, then it was the summer of 2013 and now I am told that it will be done by June 2014; this just isn’t good enough.
"Mid Wales is heavily reliant on good communications technology because of its geography and rurality, therefore I will be expecting BT to improve how it conducts its business in the future and I will be making that very clear during our discussions."