A CHARITY in Hutton that helps people in need to get back on their feet is struggling to operate because of the speed of its broadband service.
The Lighthouse Project, which is based at the industrial estate in Tallon Road, supplies recycled furniture and household items to the homeless and hard-up.
Yet for the past three years, the organisation has not been able to send out hundreds of refurbished second-hand computers at knock-down prices to those that need them most – because its BT broadband service is "too slow".
Although 170 PCs have been re-distributed for the benefit of schools, charities, community groups, voluntary organisations and individuals, Lighthouse was hoping to have issued around 1,000 since 2009.
Michael Kushin, who has been the operations/IT manager at the charity for almost four years, said he is "very frustrated" with its internet speed which, at best, operates at just 1Mb per second.
The 55-year-old, who has worked with computers for 30 years, said the broadband service he can receive is no quicker than when the internet was first launched.
He added: "I wanted to throw my machine out of the window the other day because it took me four-and-a-half hours to place an order because it kept falling over – it should have taken 15 minutes.
"Across the whole group, it's just a huge waste of everyone's time."
Lighthouse – which was founded in 1994 and now has 22 staff and 70 volunteers at Hutton – opened a second centre in Rayleigh last June and is to launch a third in the next few weeks in Epping.
It was hoped that Hutton could act as a headquarters for all three, storing the group's stockholding and inventory information, but the lack of broadband speed has put paid to that.
Instead, a further £6,000 of the charity's much-needed funds has been spent on software to manage that side of the charity in each centre.
Yet having tried to convince BT for three years that he needs faster broadband, he believes the firm is not interested in helping them.
He added: "To add insult to injury we received a communication in November from BT informing us that Infinity would be available to us in the near future with speeds of 40Mb, only to receive a phone call yesterday (February 12) from the BT representative, who recently visited us and many of the businesses on the estate, telling us that the communication was incorrect and BT has no immediate plans to upgrade our service.
"When pushed on what this meant he said at least a year and possibly as long as two years."
A BT spokesman said: "We have looked into this and confirmed that there is no fault on the line, and are of course sorry that they were given the wrong information with regards to broadband currently available.
"We have investigated thoroughly and have got this line working at the best speed available on it. We will be in contact direct to discuss this issue.
"This premises is a long distance from the exchange that serves them.
"The signals used by ADSL broadband lose strength over distance so the further you are from an exchange, the less speed you get.
"We're doing more than any other company to create new technologies which will increase broadband speeds over longer distances."
