Broadband offer alert

Members of the council’s decision-making executive committee this week received a report on the Scottish Government’s £600m R100 project to deliver super-fast speed broadband across the nation and in the Scottish Borders.

Members were informed that at the current time 91 per cent of customers in the Borders can access super-fast broadband with 6,364 properties currently in line to gain access to full fibre broadband.

But Kelso and District Conservative councillor Tom Weatherston said some broadband companies were misleading customers by making pledges that they could not meet.

Mr Weatherston cited his own personal experience as evidence of this.

He said: “I have got decent broadband, however, there is some very misleading information going on just now from some companies.

“I contacted one company about a year ago about the supersonic fast stuff and they said ‘what’s your address?’ and I told them and they said ‘sorry Mr Weatherston you have no chance. It could be years before we get to you’ and I said ‘fair enough’.

“A few months later they came round to my door and said they can give me the supersonic fast broadband, no problem.

"They asked what I was paying and they said they could match that.

“So I signed up for it and I’m still waiting after sending dozens of emails.

"They told me they were coming in three weeks and then it was another three weeks, so there are companies getting a bit naughty out there by telling people they can deliver something that clearly they can’t.”

In response, Duncan Nisbet, stakeholder engagement director with the R100 super-fast broadband project, said: “I think that is right, it can be quite an aggressive market in terms of the retail market and perhaps some companies overstep the mark on that.

"If suppliers are making some false claims then we’d certainly like to hear about that.

"We have account managers who look after all these organisations.”