Philip Dunne MP has campaigned for access to broadband for rural areas surrounding Bridgnorth and Ludlow since befoe he was elected as MP for the Ludlow constituency. He recently brought these concerns to the attention of Parliament, speaking in a debate before the Easter recess regarding Broadband access in rural areas.

Mr Dunne said today: "As part of my preparation for this debate I discussed the latest problems with both Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and the County Council's Switch On Shropshire teams. A great deal of progress has been made which should mean broadband being available, at last, to all in our area later this year."

AWM has put in place a regional Broadband organisation approach, designed to overcome access problems for postcode areas which have been unable to receive ADSL Broadband services. There are four aspects to this approach:

• AWM awarded a contract to BT to enable 24 exchanges in the West Midlands which BT had considered commercially unviable to be Broadband enabled. This upgrading commenced in November 2005 with almost all exchanges enabled by the end of February, the final exchange in Shropshire is due to be enabled in April.

• In December 2005 AWM awarded a contract to Avanti to provide a wireless network in the local area remote from exchanges which is linked to a central satellite receiver in each of 97 postcode areas, including Stipperstones in South Shropshire.

• A further contract was awarded in January 2006 to QICOMM which covers a further 93 postcodes to provide a wireless connection to remote premises connected to a central location for access to QICOMM's own fixed line WiFi network, upgradable to the new WiMax system in due course. This programme will connect four areas in South Shropshire, namely Clun Forest, Cockshutford, New Invention and Tugford.

• For business premises where Broadband access is not otherwise available, the Remote Area Broad Band Inclusion Trial (RABBIT) scheme exists to provide satellite delivery. A basic 512K byte service is available with free installation covered by an AWM grant. Any better quality (ie faster) service attracts 50% grant funding.

Most access problems should be capable of being resolved through one of these schemes.

Mr Dunne added: "If anyone continues to have problems, please let me know as I have founf AWM and Switch-on-Shropshire very helpful in getting access prolems resolved."

Mr Dunne cautioned: "The digital TV signal is likely to be the next technological challenge we face in this area."