Stephen Hargreaves lives with his partner Cathy in the semi-rural town of Pathhead, near Dalkeith, south west of Edinburgh. Since leaving school, Stephen has worked in the building trade and he decided to further his career by studying for an honours degree in Construction Project Management at Herriot-Watt University.

“Superfast broadband is making it easier for us to enjoy our leisure time and streamlining all the everyday tasks – overall this makes quite a difference to the quality of life, as well as making it easier for me to complete my studies”

Stephen was delighted when fibre broadband became available in their area. He says: “Our old broadband speed was very poor. We were getting around 1.2 Mbps – and that was on a good day! It was often much worse.

“To give just one example of how restricting this was, for my university course on construction, we have to use some very bandwith-heavy programmes to work on detailed 3D building drawings. I simply couldn’t do this effectively from home, with my previous broadband. So I had to regularly drive to the university simply to use their broadband connection. This was a 34 mile round trip and a real waste of time and money.”

Working efficiently from home

As soon as they were able to switch to fibre broadband, they noticed a massive change. Stephen explains:

“Superfast broadband has been absolutely brilliant – and a real eyeopener. We can now rely on a speed of 40 Mbps. We could get a package with even faster speeds if we wanted it, but this is more than adequate for our needs. “It couldn’t have been timed better as far as my degree course is concerned. I am now in my fourth and final year – so the pressure is on. I am able to work so much more efficiently now and travel in to the university when I choose to – not because I have to, to be able to use their internet connection.

“All the software that I use now for my degree is cloud-based. So all my key files and documents are stored in the cloud. For this stage of my course, I need to use some very sophisticated programmes to construct and update models of buildings. All this is now rendered over the cloud. It’s excellent!

Instant communication

On a personal level, it also makes it easier to stay in touch with friends and family. We use FaceTime to stay in regular contact with Cathy’s son, who lives in Southampton.

“Superfast broadband has also transformed our leisure options. Cathy and I have been able to invest in a smart TV and we really enjoy streaming or downloading movies using Netflix and Amazon Prime. We don’t need to use satellite any more.

New world of entertainment

It has opened up a whole new world of entertainment for us. The connection is fantastic and never misses a beat. “The mobile phone signal in our area is not great, so we have a package that diverts our calls through our superfast wi-fi, which works like a dream. It is much quicker and easier now to do everyday tasks like online banking and shopping. In fact, these days we do most of our grocery shopping online. We love to travel, and we will often be searching holiday ideas online using our phones, while the smart TV is also on. This simply wouldn’t have been possible before.

So superfast broadband is making it easier for us to enjoy our leisure time and streamlining all the everyday tasks – overall this makes quite a difference to the quality of life, as well as making it easier for me to complete my studies.

“As you can imagine, with this much faster connection I am dying to invest in a few more of the home gadgets that are enabled by superfast broadband. But I have to hold myself back until my course is finished. Once it is, there will be no stopping me!”