Somerset County Council (UK) has announced that the last Local Authority School in Somerset is been hooked up to a broadband Internet connection, in partnership with British Telecom, Cable & Wireless and Research Machines PLC (RM).
The broadband Internet connection marks the end of a programme, which has involved 240 primary and special schools across Somerset. The driver of this scheme has been a government initiative to ensure all schools in England and Wales are connected to broadband at a speed of two megabytes by the end of 2006. Due to a lack of a good communication infrastructure in Somerset, this has been a lengthy exercise, with British Telecom having to upgrade exchanges specifically to connect schools, and with many long and expensive digs being required for installing the fibre cables.
