THOUSANDS of internet users in South Gloucestershire will soon join the rest of the country in the 21st century.

Tory councillors have drawn up plans to spend £2.2million of council money to provide broadband access across the area.

It would mean nine out of ten users would have superfast speeds of up to 24 Mbps by 2015.

It would also mean that everyone in South Gloucestershire would have a minimum of 2Mbps broadband by the same date.

Thousands of people have been left in the slow lane of the information super-highway because they cannot get a broadband service as fast as elsewhere.

One of the troublespots is in Bradley Stoke where an estimated 2,000 people are affected.

When the town was being built, most of the 9,000 homes were linked up to a fibre-optic cable network.

But about 2,000 homes were missed out during the early nineties and those residents have suffered from slow internet connections via the phone line because traditional copper cabling was used.

Some homes have not been able to get even basic broadband because the British Telecom exchanges for the town – in Almondsbury and Filton – are too far away.

BT is upgrading its Filton exchange but some of the council subsidy will be used to upgrade the Almondsbury exchange.

The rest will be used to upgrade exchanges in rural villages such as Charfield and Wick.

Tory candidates in Bradley Stoke made a manifesto pledge to fight for broadband access in the local elections last year.

The council money is on top of £710,000 which has been pledged by the Government under a body called Broadband Delivery UK.

South Gloucestershire has created a partnership with Wiltshire County Council and Swindon to improve its buying power from internet providers such as BT and Virgin Media.

The funding will work in a similar way to subsidies on bus routes where there are few passengers.

The council pays a subsidy to bus operators to make sure an unprofitable service continues.

With broadband access, the council money will make it commercially viable for internet providers to install the exchanges and cabling in areas where population numbers are low.

Work on providing the new exchanges and cabling could start in December if the funding is agreed.

The Tory group has included broadband access as part of its budget proposal for next year and which will be put before the council's Cabinet on Monday, February 6.

It will then be up to the full council on include the funding when it decides the budget at a meeting on Wednesday, February 22.

Tory cabinet councillor John Goddard said: "Following our recent tie-up with Wiltshire Council, the proposed £3 million of public investment that we will be setting out is yet more evidence of our commitment to tackle the digital divide in South Gloucestershire and ensure that we are in the superfast lane of the superfast broadband rollout."