Cornish village blazes internet trail

The irony that one of the more remote, and previously out of touch, areas of the UK is now among the best connected in Europe has not been lost on the citizens of a small Cornish valley.

These lucky 180 telecoms customers have been at the heart of a trial of next generation services that offer superfast connections to the internet via both mobile devices and fixed lines. But a UK-wide rollout of similar systems is likely to require more than £3bn for mobile spectrum to be sold at auction this year and a similar amount on cabling. In the village of Trerice, just south-east of Newquay, “e-poverty” is the new catchphrase, although this appears a particularly first world problem, the equivalent of not being able to download the latest Hollywood blockbuster while simultaneously talking over a video application and playing a computer game online against friends in Korea. However, Everything Everywhere and BT, which are conducting the trial, insist there are more altruistic purposes.