Jim Smith initially rejected the idea of building a new house in rural Lochaber because there was no broadband to allow him to work from home.
But rather than give up, he helped design and build a wireless network for his family and a few neighbours to use.
Today that network supplies a high speed service to around 560 customers in a remote area where broadband would otherwise still not have reached.
Jim and other volunteers set up the community interest company Locheilnet 10 years ago to help remote and rural premises not served by bigger providers.
Firm’s assets taken over
But a decade on, the CIC says it does not wish to continue in the highly-competitive market.
Its assets have now been bought by Comms West, a new company established by a previous Locheilnet board member.
It will provide further investment to develop fibre, telephony and wireless services.
Locheilnet chair Jackie Wright said: “As fibre broadband is being extended in Lochaber our market is changing and, although Locheilnet can offer full fibre to existing and new customers, it was never the aim of the community interest company to trade in the highly competitive fibre broadband market.”
Comms West is led by Jim Smith, Claire Cameron and Ali Hodnett, Locheilnet’s former technical manager.
Jackie added: “The Locheilnet board is therefore pleased that we are transferring our precious assets to people who are already familiar with them and also personally invested in the area and what we do.
“I would like to take this opportunity to recognise the hard work that the early pioneers of Locheilnet did to get a pilot project for 10 houses at Locheil up and running ten years ago and which has grown to the Locheilnet of today.
“Without them, many of us would still have poor or no broadband.”
Locheilnet’s customers were initially based around areas including Glenfinnan, Kentallen and South Laggan.
In 2017, the service expanded to properties in and around Kilmalieu and also Tulloch, near Roybridge.
Jim said the start was when he went to build his house at Fassfern.
“I needed to work from home, but we were told there was no internet provision we could rely on.”
The IT director for a multinational company and other volunteers then decided to provide the service themselves.
Expected to go out of business
At first, between six and 10 houses were connected.
Gradually, more domestic and commercial premises were added – including fish farms run by Mowi.
It was felt other larger companies would move into Lochaber and take over the service.
“We would then happily and gracefully go out of business and hand it on to someone else,” said Jim.
“But the truth of the matter is that 10 years later we are still in the same situation.
“At the start it was a cost-sharing exercise. It’s grown organically. We have not really done advertising and a lot of it is word of mouth.
“We were the only game in town and that’s still the case. I can’t order broadband in Fassfern, or anything usable at least, even today.”
The government’s R100 project committed to enabling access to superfast broadband to every home and business in Scotland by 2021.
But the scheme is not expected to be completed until 2028.
We were the only game in town and that’s still the case.”
Jim Smith
Jim added: “Even though they’ve invested in the network, there are still going to be gaps.
“We will still have 70-80% of our customers in this area who can’t take advantage of R100 so our service will be needed for the foreseeable future.
“It’s not viable for the bigger companies, but we are here to provide community services not to make large profits.
“That was the ethos of Locheilnet. While we are now a fully commercial operation and not a CIC, that is still the ethos.”
Beneficial to the community
Stewart Tonks, senior functional analyst at Mowi Scotland, said Locheilnet/Comms West provided access to reliable wireless broadband at several salmon farms, adding locations over the years.
He said: “We continue to collaborate on an upgraded network and expanding to new locations.
“This access to reliable broadband has been very beneficial to the broader community and is key to Mowi’s business success and adoption of state-of-the-art aquaculture technologies.”
