Progress is being made to steer Carmarthenshire out of the digital connectivity slow lane - and a new product called full fibre broadband could power it forward, councillors have been told.
Just under 13% of the county's 95,720 homes and businesses cannot receive superfast broadband, which is defined as a download speed of at least 30 megabytes per second - plenty to stream Netflix with, for example.
Although that percentage has dropped in recent years it still lags behind that of Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and even Pembrokeshire, which shares Carmarthenshire's hilly topography and scattered population.
Council chiefs want to help the 12,838 mainly rural homes and businesses still affected by the relatively low download speeds in the county, especially the ones with very low or even no connectivity.
Gareth Jones, the council's digital business transformation manager, said he and his colleagues now had a very good grasp of connectivity across Carmarthenshire, but stressed they could not resolve it on their own.
Another consideration is whether to lobby for upgrades via existing copper wires or instead focus on full fibre - the latest product which delivers far higher download speeds via fibre optic cables and enables full 5G connectivity.
Mr Jones said the UK's existing copper wire infrastructure would be deactivated at some point - most likely around 2033 but potentially sooner, according to the report before the policy and resources scrutiny committee.
Helping the 12,838 low-speed homes and businesses access full fibre, said Mr Jones, would make them "leapfrog everybody in the county".
But he said some premises in hard-to-reach rural areas might still not be able to receive full fibre, although there was a potential wireless solution.
He said the UK Government had allocated £5 billion towards the rollout of full fibre in the UK, although completing the project in its entirety could cost six to eight times more than that.
Another glimmer of hope is a proposed Welsh Government project to deliver a full fibre network along south west Wales's trunk roads.
This was described in the report as "very good news" for Carmarthenshire because around 27,000 homes and businesses near these main roads would be able to access the new network.
The council plans to keep pressing the connectivity case with both Governments and also suppliers, as well as making businesses and householders more aware of the grants available.
It has recently employed a digital connectivity officer and proposes full fibre demonstration projects at two or three rural communities with very poor connectivity, with help from outside bodies.
The report before scrutiny also said Carmarthenshire businesses and householders were not accessing superfast broadband in some cases, despite the service being available in their area.
Better broadband infrastructure is one of 11 city deal projects for the Swansea Bay City Region.
Committee members welcomed the report.
Cllr Kim Broom said she thought there would be a higher number of homes and businesses without superfast broadband access, while Cllr Deryk Cundy said one street in Bynea, Llanelli, had it while the next one didn't.
"What really frustrates people out there is that they don't know when it (superfast broadband) is going to happen," he said.
Cllr Ken Howell said his Llangeler ward had a number of steep valleys with few residents.
"I can't see how they (suppliers) are going to overcome this problem," he said.
