The Lieutenant Governor has been given a glimpse into the future of telecommunications in the island.

Sir Richard Gozney toured Manx Telecom’s headquarters on the Isle of Man Business Park and the Douglas North data centre.

He later attended Manx Telecom’s It’s Our Community awards evening, where more than £8,100 was donated to 12 local charities and good causes.

He first met with a number of staff in the customer experience team, where he was shown around by head of department Anita Barnard.

The company has more than 300 employees based in the island and runs what it calls a Centre of Excellence to provide training, skills, experience and opportunities across its workforce.

He then accompanied chief executive Gary Lamb to one of Manx Telecom’s two data centres, where he met with head of enterprise solutions James Kirby and learned about the company’s ongoing roll out of FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) and the company’s investment in a state-of-the-art fibre network for the Isle of Man.

Sir Richard was also informed about Manx Telecom’s off-island business, including a mobile SIM technology offered through its ’global solutions’ team that is used by more than half a million people in India and China, its technology start-up incubator Vannin Ventures and the UK launch of Audacious, a mobile service for hearing loss sufferers. Speaking after the visit, Gary Lamb said the Lieutenant Governor had been keen to learn about the company’s role in the development of the island’s telecommunications over its 130-year history and was also interested in its community initiatives such as the Parish Walk.

Mr Lamb said: ’We are very proud of our achievements in bringing new technology and innovation to the Isle of Man and it was a pleasure to demonstrate the depth and breadth of our services to the island. It was also a great opportunity for our staff to talk about the excellent work they do to keep our customers connected and help them find the right solutions in a fast-changing environment.

’Manx Telecom is committed to investing in the best for the Isle of Man and to continuing to support the local community in as many ways as we can, and we were very pleased to share our future thinking with His Excellency.’