Launched October 2003
The partners in the "Broadband for Leicestershire" campaign are: Leicestershire Economic Partnership; East Midlands Development Agency; Leicestershire County Council; Leicester City Council; Leicestershire Business Link; Leicestershire Learning and Skills Council; Leicestershire Rural Community Council; Leicestershire Rural Partnership; Leicestershire Constabulary; the district councils of Leicestershire; Leicestershire Chamber of Commerce.
The objective of the Partnership is to bring together local stakeholders to stimulate demand for Broadband services and to create a commercially viable and sustainable broadband community, which is capable of justifying greater broadband investment in Leicestershire.
Stimulating demand and improving supply of ICT for businesses is a key part of the East Midlands Development Agency's (emda) and the Leicestershire Economic Partnership's (LSEP) strategy for propelling the East Midlands into the top 20 of European regions by 2010.
In October 2002, the partnership launched a campaign to stimulate demand for broadband in those areas of the county where broadband is not currently available. The campaign included direct mail, media placement and the recruitment and support of local broadband champions to encourage consumers and businesses to state their interest in broadband. 7000 responses were received and to date 250 broad band champions have been recruited. Amongst other things, this interest has contributed towards a number of exchanges being enabled before their predicted dates including one in Harby, which was expected to trigger in 2005 but instead triggered in February 2004.
The partnership campaign moved into its second phase on March 31st 2004 , when BT underlined its continued support for the "Getting Broadband for Leicestershire" campaign by announcing that it was going to accelerate the availability of high-speed internet technologies at five more telephone exchanges across the county. Exchanges at Bagworth, Husbands Bosworth, Osgathorpe, Peatling Magna, and Twycross have all now been upgraded as part of the partnership scheme and together these exchanges serve more than 5,800 homes and businesses.
In conjunction with its partners across the county, BT continues to take every opportunity to increase awareness amongst residents and businesses of broadband and encourage the adoption of the technology in Leicestershire.