Rural Connections

Rural Broadband Specialist Stephen Pinchen, who is the MD and owner of North East company Alncom, takes a break from filming with ITV to talk to Michael Grahamslaw about making rural Northumberland one of the best connected places IN BRITAIN

Stephen Pinchen said; “There are a lot of people working and running businesses from home right now and for those living in more rural areas, a lack of decent broadband speed could turn working from home into a nightmare. Alncom are rolling out the infrastructure to inject internet speeds of up to a Gigabit to more than 200 homes and businesses in the North East”.

“That’s more than 20 times faster than the typical connection and hundreds of times faster than some rural connections throughout Britain” said Stephen Pinchen MD of Alncom.

Sitting on the back of Stephen’s 4×4 in the depths of the rolling countryside of Northumberland, with a herd of cows grazing contentedly, we chat over a mug of tea, while a mole plough is laying the way for the fibre-optic cable, barely leaving a mark on the land and completely grown over within a day, we discuss Alncom’s rollout of infrastructure that is cutting edge of the highest level set to transform the lives of businesses, like Aidan Phillipson, who moved back to Northumberland from the city of London three years ago and until now, has struggled to carry on working in financial services. The transformation is radical.

Many of the cables are being laid on Harry Baker Cresswell’s land at Chathill in Northumberland and his home at Preston Tower. Soon to be turned into a wedding venue this couldn’t come quick enough for Harry, who said “this is about giving country folk the same opportunity as city and town dwellers. We have holiday cottages and many homes and businesses here and plans for Preston Tower to become a wedding venue. There are acres of stunning countryside, manicured lawns and fresh air. Personally, I am so grateful and the fact Alncom are local and know everyone will help the economy and the community too”.

Alncom are highly experienced at building the networks to facilitate projects of this nature and their many years of business means that they can turn these projects around quickly. This includes making everything physically work by ploughing across fields, negotiating roads and river crossings and talking to landowners.

John Parker, Business Development Manager for Alncom said; “Within weeks, this ultrafast broadband will be on-line, making this corner of rural Northumberland one of the best-connected places in Britain. Talk to us and see how we can help you.”