Free Dorset WiFi

Five North Dorset towns to get own public network under Dorset County Council’s Superfast Broadband initiative.

20:38 09 August 2017

Residents and visitors of five North Dorset towns are set to have free Internet access courtesy of Dorset County Council’s Superfast Broadband initiative. Gillingham, Shaftesbury, Sturminster Newton, Blandford Forum and Stalbridge would have their own landing page that would contain useful information including each town’s facilities, such as where to eat and sleep, their transport system, places to visit, local walks and also those of neighbouring areas.

 

Councillor Barry Von Clemens said that the scheme could provide substantial benefits. ‘If you’ve got patchy 3G or 4G coverage this is a great way to improve your coverage, it protects people’s data allowance, and it also helps you to find out what the towns have to offer. He said tourism officials saw the service as a ‘great way to promote the tourist industry and to help with town regeneration and development’.

 

He added: ‘At a time when tourist information centres face financial restraints it would be a great help to the tourist industry which has a great deal of potential in this area.’ He said the scheme would help with marketing opportunities for town events and give a ‘supporting role’ for heritage tourism and for walkers.