Ultrafast broadband sustains growth for Warwickshire businesses

A WARWICKSHIRE radio station is pinning its hopes for future growth on its studio’s connection to an ultra-fast broadband network.

Touch FM, which has almost 400,000 weekly listeners, is one of the first of 65 companies on Holly Farm Business Park, near Kenilworth to get the business-quality broadband.
            
The network is operated by Coventry-based WarwickNet, the region’s largest independent provider of ultrafast internet services.

Touch FM and park manager John Patton said: “BT installed its basic broadband here about 15 years but it’s just not fast enough for our tenants and we have been campaigning for them to upgrade it. Their reluctance to act left an opening for WarwickNet to come along and provide what we needed. The site wouldn’t survive without superfast broadband.”

Ben Day, Touch FM’s director of operations, said the connection had changed the way the business operates.

“We have five radio stations at Holly Farm, as well as our head office. We have been here for five years and have actively campaigned to get high speed broadband because working in digital radio requires the ability to quickly download large audio files necessary for us to operate,” he said.

“Before it was awful – downloading took forever, but the new WarwickNet connections means we now have the confidence to install new software that we would not have been able to use before. It means we are changing the way we do business and, more importantly, helping us to grow.”

The 55-acre business centre, which is fully managed, has more than 100,000 sq ft of business units, ranging in size from 200 sq ft to 15,000 sq ft.