Going more O/T :p
Having good internet access is a building block for any successful business these days and after all the promises over the years for better rural broadband someone at HIE/BT/Scottish Government should feel ashamed of themselves that you are struggling like you are.
There was an HIE orgranised meeting about broadband provision in rural Lochaber recently in Fort William, incidentally on the day of storm Henry that crumpled Glencoe's TooWay dish and caused a line fault that also took down the ADSL. There are a good number of businesses in a similar situation who are really struggling, even basic business functions now require a decent internet connection.
There's no doubt the rollout being funded by the SG through HIE is transforming connectivity for many rural areas, but the meeting in Fort William highlighted to clear shortcomings in the criteria used to set targets for the project:
1. Firstly, no account of need on the basis of the inadequacy or total absence of current broadband.
2. Targets based on properties, but not taking account of what these properties are used for. 3 houses would count for more than a 30 bedroom hotel or a caravan park or in Glencoe's case a Ski Area - thus no account of the number of people who may at a given location trying to get online.
Point 1 is probably the most critical, because where the target is to get 'next generation' broadband speeds to X% of properties the inevitable outcome is the easy pickings are done first. The result been those who already have semi acceptable internet get high speed internet, while those who have next to nothing are left with next to nothing.
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www.kirkwood.com]
I lived and worked in Kirkwood, CA in the past and the 'Cornice Cam' on that webpage is the same camera as 10 years ago. They've had a streaming webcam since 2003 or 2004, there still isn't the infrastructure to support sufficiently fast unmetered internet access for such a camera at a usable resolution at any of the Scottish Snowsport Areas. (Well at CairnGorm and Nevis Range Three might just be able to support it, but the cost would be astronomical).
We are that far behind, quite a few people have asked why are the webcam images from Glencoe lower resolution on this site than the others and that's simply down to the fact sometimes it's a struggle to get 640x480 stills out.
Edited 1 times. Last edit at 18.28hrs Fri 19 Feb 16 by alan.