BT Start BDUK Rollout of Fibre Broadband in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire

The Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) has announced the first areas to benefit from its state aid supported project with neighbouring Herefordshire, which aims to make superfast broadband (25Mbps+) services available 90% of homes and businesses in both English (UK) counties by the end of 2016 and 100% by 2018.

The £56.6m scheme, which use to be called the Borders Broadband project before a 5-year old apparently came along and thought Fastershire sounded better (no really, that’s actually what they’ve called it), eventually aims to benefit over 140,000 local premises with faster internet access.

As usual the funding comes from various sources including £18.17m from the government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office, £10.1m from Herefordshire Council, £7.5m from Gloucestershire County Council and £20.9 million from BT.

The initial roll-out is now underway and will first aim to connect around 15,000 homes and businesses in the Forest of Dean area (i.e. Cinderford, Coleford, Drybrook, Longhope and Lydbrook). The first customers are expected to be connected during the autumn 2013.

Cllr Mark Hawthorne, Leader of Gloucestershire County Council, said:

“I’m delighted we can now announce the first communities to benefit from this important project. We have made this significant investment in the county’s broadband infrastructure so that businesses and communities of all sizes can grow – this is about improving broadband access for all and I look forward to seeing the first cabinets go live later this year.”

The original contract was signed at the very end of last year (here) and as usual BT intends to deploy a mix of its up to 80Mbps FTTC and 330Mbps capable FTTP based broadband ISP technologies.

As part of the effort BTOpenreach, which is conducting the roll-out, expects to lay around 2,500 kilometres of optical fibre cable and install 800 new street cabinets.