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South Liverpool Housing decided to set up an interactive television service to increase tenant participation, but none of the private-sector internet providers would set up a broadband exchange for us.

BT and Telewest couldn't see a large enough market – Speke and Garston are some of the most deprived areas in the country. So we set up an exchange ourselves.

The service will be launched in August. We've researched it for two years. It's cost us £3m and we expect to break even midway through the second year. We've got six staff working on it at the moment and we're going to recruit another eight.

A company called Independent Networks is sorting out the exchange and wholesaling the broadband to us, then we'll retail it to residents and small businesses. There's also a network of training centres where people can improve their IT skills.

Residents will be able to access the Your TV service through set-top boxes. They'll get all the free-to-air digital channels and loads of local content too.

If you bought broadband from BT it would cost £25 a month, but we're charging £15. It is eight times faster than BT and residents get all the local content too – so it's very competitive.

We're moving into voice calls, so we'll be able to give local residents cheaper telephone calls. In three months, we hope it'll be possible to put a PC on the same system, and we're working with credit unions to make sure people can afford one.