Broadband boost for Ballymena's business sector

NGBP, an investment by BT and the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment (DETI), comes under the umbrella of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) European Sustainable Competitiveness Programme.

BT engineers have completed the local upgrades, and businesses are able to join the high-speed revolution and order faster broadband from their service providers.

People working in the area are among the first in Northern Ireland to benefit from the NGBP roll-out programme. Businesses should contact their broadband service provider to place an order or to register their interest, log onto www.fasterbroadbandni.com.

For businesses, the new network will underpin the introduction of many new services and applications. The additional bandwidth available, both upload and download, will enable businesses to work more efficiently and increase productivity.

Faster upstream speeds will allow businesses to increase flexible and remote working, saving them money on office overheads and improving the work-life balance of their employees

Large graphic and video files can be sent immediately online rather than delivered to clients on hard disk. This would be particularly beneficial to the creative industries.

Business will be able to use high quality voice and video calls – helping them to reduce the amount of time travelling to customers while still gaining the benefit of direct customer contact. This will also help lower CO2 emissions as tele-working replaces travel.

•The faster broadband networks will support ways of online marketing and communicating that will cut business costs and will allow firms to better compete in Northern Ireland and overseas.

Graham Sutherland, CEO, BT, said: “This is an exciting development in Northern Ireland’s broadband story and we are leading the way across Europe in the deployment of fibre technology to businesses. Businesses switching to faster broadband will soon be experiencing the internet as they have never experienced it before. All communications providers will have open access to this future-proofed network, driving greater competition and choice for all. The next generation of broadband services has arrived and businesses urban and rural will benefit.”

Arlene Foster, Minister for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment said “The advent of the next generation broadband project in Ballymena will support local jobs and the local economy and is integral to Northern Ireland creating one of the most fibre-rich networks in the UK to boost the productivity and competitiveness of business.

“As the roll-out of faster broadband gathers pace, many more communities in other parts of Northern Ireland can look forward to, and take advantage of, the faster broadband speeds in the pipeline.”