Superfast Dorset UK Reveals Phase 2 Fibre Broadband Rollout Areas

The Superfast Dorset scheme in southern England, which is worth £31.75 million and supported by the local councils, Broadband Delivery UK office and BT, has announced the next 8 telephone exchange areas in the county to benefit from an upgrade to faster “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) based Internet connectivity.

The scheme aims to extend the coverage of BTOpenreach’s predominantly Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) based services to cover 97% of the county by the end of 2016, with some 95% expected to receive “superfast” speeds of 25Mbps+ and the rest will get sub-24Mbps. Once upgraded locals will be able to take “fibre” services from all of the usual ISPs.

So far the first phase of this deployment has already helped to reach around 10,000 local homes and businesses in areas like Weymouth and Ferndown, while phase two is expected to add another 10,000 premises to that (total 20,000) and will run from Late June to December 2014. The first customers will be able to buy the new services from October 2014.

Dorset – Phase 2 Fibre Rollout Areas

Abbotsbury
Dorchester
Maiden Newton
Martinstown
Preston
Puddletown
Upwey
Warmwell

In addition Bridport, which was a phase one area, will also start to receive its upgrade this summer. As usual it’s important to remember that BTOpenreach’s engineering teams won’t always cover 100% of each telephone exchange area and, even in areas where that is their target, then it may still take additional work at a later date in order to complete the roll-out.

The project has also updated its deployment map with the new roll-out data and in this respect Dorset remains one of the few councils to offer a reasonably useful illustration, albeit still far from perfect.