The Welsh Government (WG) recently published its final Wales Infrastructure Investment Plan (WIIP), which revealed that the region intends to invest a total of up to £400 million into the roll-out of 30Mbps+ superfast broadband services to reach 100% of the country’s businesses by the middle of 2016 and homes by 2020.
The longer term plan itself remains roughly in-line with UK government policy, which aims to make superfast broadband (25Mbps+) ISP services available to 90% of “people in each local authority area” by 2015; the last 10% will be left with a minimum speed of at least 2Mbps. But unlike the UK, Wales has also mirrored the EU’s near identical plan for the 2015-2020 period.
WIIP – Next Generation Broadband for Wales
Businesses in the sectors and the economy as a whole will benefit from the availability of competitive, flexible digital infrastructure. We are seeking to ensure that all residential premises and all businesses in Wales will have access to high speed broadband by 2015, with the ambition that at least half have access to ultra fast broadband services. The total value of the Next Generation Broadband investment is anticipated to be up to £400m, combining funding of around £57m from UK Government and £70m from European sources with Welsh Government funding in order to leverage significant investment from the private sector.
This investment in communications infrastructure will stimulate a thriving and competitive digital economy. It will support growth through wide-scale application, innovation, commercialisation and exploitation of digital technologies by Welsh businesses, and particularly the ICT and Creative Industries sectors.
Earlier this year we reported that Fujitsu UK had “voluntarily withdrawn” from the Next Generation Broadband Wales tender process because it believed the “risk levels” were simply “too high“, which left BT has the only major bidder (here). ISPreview.co.uk understands that a contract between the Welsh Government and BT is now certain to be signed this summer 2012.
At present just over 30% of Wales, which is mostly rural land, can access a superfast broadband service and around 19% of people receive broadband download speeds of less than 2Mbps (Megabits per second).
The Wales Infrastructure Investment Plan (WIIP)
http://wales.gov.uk/funding/wiip2012/?lang=en
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