Suffolk UK to Meet Government’s Superfast Broadband Target in 2018

On Tuesday next week the Suffolk County Council in England will vote to approve a new plan that aims to extend their existing £40m Better Broadband for Suffolk project and make superfast broadband (24Mbps+) speeds available to 95% of the county, although it won’t complete until sometime in 2018 (later than the national target of 2017).

The current project is already working to make BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network available to over 90% of local homes and businesses by the end of 2015, yet this figure actually falls to 85% when you only look at the coverage for “superfast” speeds of 24Mbps+.

The Government’s £250m Superfast Extension Programme (Broadband Delivery UK) originally allocated an extra £4.82m (here) to help Suffolk achieve the 95% coverage goal, which the national target requires to be met by 2017. But this has since been pumped up to £15m and the project is thus now expected to be worth more than £30m after match-funding, with £5m coming from the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (Growth Deal).

Mark Bee, Suffolk County Council Leader, said:

“This is very important – pushing the coverage of [superfast] broadband up to 95% of Suffolk. It is vital for business and for residents who want a good broadband connection. By getting on with this project Suffolk will be at the forefront of the broadband expansion in the country.”

Happily most of the areas that should benefit from the extra work will actually be in rural locations, which makes a change from the current BDUK deployment where the bulk of work seems to benefit larger towns and sub-urban communities (the most rural areas typically tend to exist in that final 10% or so of coverage).

However EADT24 reports that the extension project will also benefit some town areas, such as the Farthing Road Industrial Estate in Ipswich and the Haverhill Industrial Estate. It’s good to see that businesses, which can sometimes be overlooked (especially if cheaper FTTC puts lucrative leased lines at risk), are now going to benefit from a bigger focus.