Oxfordshire UK Extends BT Fibre Broadband Rollout via New Contract

The state aid supported Better Broadband for Oxfordshire project, which is working with BT to extend superfast broadband access (24Mbps+) to 90% of the county by the end of 2015, has today signed a £5.1m extension contract that will expand this coverage to another 6,500 local premises.

The extra funding will see the Government’s national Broadband Delivery UK scheme, via its Phase 2 Superfast Extension Programme, contribute another £1.95m towards the effort. In turn this will be supported by £1m from the South Oxfordshire District Council, £500,000 from Cherwell District Council, £250,000 from the Vale of the White Horse District Council, £200,000 from Oxfordshire County Council and finally £1.2m from BT.

Bill Murphy, BT’s MD of Next Gen Broadband, said:

“Today marks a giant step forward in the roll-out of fibre broadband in Oxfordshire and across the UK. Here more than 210,000 home and businesses now have access to high-speed fibre broadband thanks to Better Broadband for Oxfordshire and BT’s own commercial fibre broadband programme. We are now reaching into the heart of scores of communities across the region that have so far been beyond the reach of this vital technology.”

Matthew Barber, Leader of Vale of White Horse Council, said:

“This additional investment ensures that we address the areas of the Vale community which still don’t receive the broadband speeds they need and puts us that much closer to achieving 100 per cent coverage.”

The Better Broadband for Oxfordshire programme (this excludes West Oxfordshire that has a separate scheme) hopes to make superfast broadband speeds available to 64,500 additional local premises (excluding those upgraded via BT’s separate commercial investment) and so far it has already enabled more than 30,000 of those.

However it’s noted that in today’s release the new target will reach 95% with “fibre broadband” and doesn’t specifically state if that’s reflective of “superfast” speeds (we think it us but can’t be sure). On top of that there’s also no clear completion date for the extension.