Service essential for student landlords

WITH their laptops, iPads, ultra-modern mobile phones and penchant for online computer games, university students are renowned within the industry as being some of the heaviest internet users in society.

So it is no surprise to see a local internet firm targeting students at Sheffield University as a key market for the super-fast broadband speeds Digital Region can offer.

Sheffield-based firm Ask4 is in the process of signing deals with a number of local student landlords, many of whom own several hundred student houses around the city, to provide super-fast broadband to their properties.

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The firm's business development manager Oliver Riddle said the opportunity to move into a house already serviced by a 40Mbs internet connection would prove a big draw for many students.

He said: "We already provide fibre-based internet access to large halls of residence, but what Digital Region allows us to do is bring that same service to individual houses – and have it ready and waiting when the students arrive.

"One of the landlords we will be dealing with put this proposal to students in his house, and they told him a fast internet connection is the most important feature they would look for when choosing where to live.

"You have to remember these houses are often shared by five, six, seven, eight different students, each with a laptop and a games console and all the rest of it. They are very heavy users."

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Mr Riddle added: "They use the internet for their academic work, for downloading, for gaming, for watching video online – and if you have eight people trying to do those things at once with a standard connection it's almost impossible."

Ask4 expects to have hundreds of student houses connected to Digital Region by July 2011.

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