Superfast Broadband real life stories: Julie from Carmarthenshire

Julie lives in a farmhouse in rural Carmarthenshire with her husband and three black labradors.  Due to the remote location of her farmhouse she had been struggling with a very slow internet connection of around 2mbps that would sometimes go down completely. 

Julie says that she found the situation incredibly frustrating, particularly due to how much she relies on the internet for everyday tasks. 

A self-confessed gaming enthusiast Julie found playing online extremely slow and frustrating. As a league level chess player, she had to resign a rated game halfway through due to her internet connection failing. 

Julie found out from talking to a neighbour about other options that are available for getting faster internet speeds and used the Welsh Government’s Access Broadband Cymru (ABC) grant scheme to fund equipment and installation costs for a new mobile broadband connection. The scheme provides grant funding to support the installation of a broadband solution to homes and businesses in Wales that are unable to achieve a fast connection over 30Mbps via any other means. 

Julie had a mobile broadband solution installed at her home. An external antenna was attached to the outside of her house that delivers a mobile broadband connection to a router inside her home.   

Julie said 

“Just knowing the internet is always there makes all the difference, so far it has never gone down.  I now compete in a lot of games online with the secure knowledge that I'll be able to complete the competition without the internet going down. I also purchase a lot of games online, it used to take a whole day to download the average game but now it takes minutes.

“Streaming is now amazing! I used to always get the "circle of doom" when we tried to watch anything but now it's extremely stable and we can watch any length of film.  We have a large house but the internet reaches every room so we've even installed a smart TV upstairs, which would have been impossible before. 

“When we have people over and they want to use the internet it used to be quite embarrassing, but now we are proud of our speeds and stability.

“I would definitely recommend the Welsh Government’s Access Broadband Cymru scheme as it has made such a difference to our everyday life.”