BT Telecoms are trying to connect parts of Hillside with the 21st century.
They have applied for planning permission to install a cabinet on the pavement outside 44 Montgomery Street, thus providing superfast fibre-optic Broadband to the area for the first time (Ref. 15/00483/FUL).
If consented, locals will soon be able to trawl the Internet in search of offensive or inappropriate material at speeds hitherto only dreamt of.
The stylish green HUAWEI 288 box measures about 4'8" tall by 4ft wide, and so will probably remind many residents of a particularly well-nourished leprechaun. Along with its concrete plinth and associated communications upgrade, it comes as part of the Broadband Delivery (BDUK) Scotland programme, funded to the tune of £410m by the Scottish Government, the European Regional Development Fund and BT.
The new addition will please Leith Central Community Council chair John Hein. A resident of this local broadband wilderness, he has long complained that it is quicker for him to pen a letter of complaint to his MSPs and hand-deliver it in person to Holyrood than it is to send them an email.
Elsewhere, opinion on the scheme is divided between those who admire the speed with which difficult or uneconomic to reach bits of Scotland are being connected; those who say BT’s exclusive receipt of funds amounts to unfair state subsidy; and those happy new customers – blue-faced and wheezing in darkened rooms – who have lost all their friends, the power of speech and the determination to go outside.
European Union regulators have given their approval. So that's all right, then.
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@theSpurtle yay! Hillside, Edinburgh's Hoxton!
@theSpurtle so **thats** what these horrible green boxes are. ridiculous that bb here slower than in Shetland (fibre optic cable from Faroe)
John Cromb You never mentioned the 50 quid a month BT want for the pleasure.
Broughton Spurtle Bitter-sweet. 40 shades of green.