BT trials 'white space' broadband on Scottish island Some internet users claim web access is a human right - on the Scottish Isle of Bute, such philosophising is academic because for many broadband is simply non-existent. But a new trial is changing that and there are few more potent places to see the real, transformative influence that getting online can make to communities. BT is one of a number of partners collaborating in a year-long test to examine if rural areas can benefit from using redundant bits of the radio spectrum. The so-called "digital dividend" from moving television from analogue to digital means that new areas of "white-space" have opened up. A total of 32 8MHz wide channels will be available, and each could patch holes in broadband coverage. That's particularly useful in areas where the local telephone exchange is a long way from rural residents, which means broadband speeds can be painfully slow. On Bute, some residents routinely pay £50 a month for speeds of 0.5Mbps, delivered over imperfect satellite connections. Under the new trial, residents can get speeds of between 4 and 8 Mbps thanks to a simple TV aerial and a slightly different box. When I visited the island it was clear that, at the right times and with few users, the world of video calling, Facebook and catch-up television may yet come to areas that are otherwise going to be on the wrong side of a worsening digital divide. For a number of triallists, their own personal digital dividend is already palpable: Robert McAllister is a breeder of top-quality cattle and sheep - the new technology means not only that he can use the Defra website to notify the government of cattle movements (a legal requirement) but he can also see, live, the price of cattle at market. Activities that previously took hours now take moments, and McAllister reports that his wife and family are much happier too. Even more powerful is the story of a 23-year-old farmer's son. For lack of Facebook, social media and in short contact with the outside world, he'd moved away from the family farm to the other side of the island. Others have gone even further and moved away from such remote places altogether. But with the new improved service this one farmer's son in particular has now moved back; his family say there's every chance he'll take on the generations-old work on the land, where previously it might have had to be sold. It's all too easy to underestimate the very human impact of technology. But there's an economic story too: this trial in Bute is going on in part thanks to Malcolm Brew, whose working life has been spent in part in Africa, installing telephone networks in virgin territory. Now, as China moves in offering huge economic incentives, people such as Brew are looking at how their businesses can stay one step ahead of the pack. The work that's going on in this remote Scottish isle is more cutting edge than anything China has yet developed, it's thought. In due course, the fruits of this project and others like it could yet be operating world-leading networks across the world. So while BT is keen to emphasise these "white space trials" are not a panacea for the blight of rural broadband, they're making a real difference - at home for now, and hopefully soon abroad as well. Britain's knowledge economy is burgeoning in the most unlikely places.