BY KIRSTY WATT
HebNet, the Small Isles’ community-interest broadband company, has just reached a major milestone this month celebrating 15 years of providing the area with fast, reliable internet.
Based in Eigg, HebNet CIC’s origins began in 2010 when Simon Helliwell launched an experimental pilot scheme to see if usable broadband could be wirelessly transmitted to Eigg. By the end of the year, HebNet CIC was formed and the majority of Eigg’s businesses and households were connected, with each household contributing £75 to materials.
Since then, the CIC has gone from strength to strength with Ian Bolas, Davie Newton and Marc Smith joining Simon in the team of directors, helping to connect Rum, Canna, Muck, Knoydart and Elgol into the network.
Not stopping there, the team are upgrading the service and have already moved Eigg, Rum and 90 per cent of the properties in Elgol onto fibre optic broadband, increasing the reliability and longevity of the broadband provided, using funding from the Scottish Government’s R100 scheme.
In Elgol, where broadband was previously supplied by BT, the switch to HebNet now means households have an internet speed of 100 mb (for upload and download) opposed to BT’s 0.47 mb download and 0.3mb upload. BT’s speeds barely allowed people to send emails, never mind use zoom or watch Netflix.
Marc, from Elgol, who spent months volunteering connecting the village to HebNet before becoming a director, told the Free Press: “The biggest impact HebNet has had on the Elgol community is that it allows young couples to come and work. If houses come up, people don’t have to worry that there’s no internet.
“And, during Covid, all the kids were home schooled. If we had been still been on BT, it would have been a total no go. You couldn’t even have made voice calls. There were eight to ten kids and if all those households were on a call at the same time, it would have just fallen apart because the exchange wouldn’t have coped.
“But with HebNet, people could stream movies, they could keep connected to their family, there were quiz nights… Having HebNet during covid is one of the things we are most proud of.”
HebNet are now working on installing the upgraded fibre connection – tiny, underground glass fibre cables which transmit data faster and more reliably than traditional connections – to Knoydart and Canna.
Marc said: “With the fibre, all we will need to do in future is upgrade any equipment at the mast sites because the fiber optic will outlive me, unless someone digs it up!
“There are a lot of community broadband schemes out there, but they don’t have fibre. If it’s big enough, they could become a supplier and the government will give them money to put fibre in.
“The other option is Starlink, but it’s much better to do it on your own, in a community-based way. HebNet still only costs [households] £15 a month – the same price as 15 years ago – and I think that will be the goal, to stay at £15 a month.”