A VILLAGE on the Jurassic Coast has been given an internet connection fit for the 21st century after a business devised an innovative way of putting it online.

Kimmeridge is to be the home of the Etches Museum, housing one of the country’s finest collections of fossils – but the area’s slow internet connection would have made an online presence almost impossible.

The village had 200kbps broadband, with web pages taking five minutes or more to load and no way to stream even low-quality video.

But Poole-based company VoIP Unlimited agreed to foot the bill to get the Kimmeridge properly online.

Managing director Mark Pillow said: “Taking on the full overheads of this project was a big decision for me to make, but the challenge and life-changing results for the residents were just too appealing.”

The company surveyed the site and decided the solution was Portland Harbour, which has a direct line of sight to one of the highest points on Kimmeridge.

It ran 2km (1.25miles) of fibre across Portland and connected it to a microwave link which could send a wireless signal to a new mast at Kimmeridge 25km (15.5miles) away. Two antennae were installed to ensure services were reliable.

Mr Pillow said: “The number of customers we now have in the area has already reduced my prediction on a rather long return on investment. I am glad to have removed this extremely frustrating barrier for Kimmeridge residents and am extremely proud of our solution, despite all the barriers which would have most likely stopped most companies from deployment completion.”

The company had to produce visual impact statements before doing the work in an official Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. An archaeologist was hired to oversee any excavation.

The mast is on a hill so steep that the concrete to fix it had to be mixed on the scene. Hurricane Imogen happened during the installation and some workers had to seek shelter on the site.

Under the old 200kbps connection, it would have taken 35 hours 47 minutes to download a one-hour TV episode, compared with under three minutes under the new 50mbps link.

Kimmeridge resident Sir Michael Hobbs sai: “You couldn’t do any serious work on your computer and it was a major cause of concern to the village. This is an isolated area; people do rely on communications of some sort.

“The difference was immediate, it was startling. Without it, the village is dead really.”