BT Signs Superfast Broadband Extension Contract for Leicestershire UK

The Leicestershire County Council in central England and national telecoms operator BT have today signed a £9.2 million extension of their existing Broadband Delivery UK contract, which will enabled more than 10,000 extra homes and businesses to access a “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network by the end of 2018.

At present the existing £18.5m Superfast Leicestershire project is already working to deploy the new network out to reach 96% of local homes and businesses by March 2016. In practical terms this means that about 54,000 additional premises will be able to receive “super-fast” speeds of 24Mbps+ (note: the underlying network aims to benefit 62,000 by 2016, but not all will get 24Mbps+).

So far the project has already helped to connect 25,000 premises to the new service, which typically represents areas that would have otherwise been marked as commercially unviable by BT. As part of this work, 124 green roadside FTTC street cabinets have already been installed and more than 270kms of fibre optic cable installed.

In terms of funding for the second contract, £3.45m is coming from the Government’s BDUK budget, £2.3m will be contributed by BT, while another £2m is coming via the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (Local Growth Deal) and finally £1.45m from the county council.

Steve Henderson, BT’s Regional NGA Director, said:

“The Superfast Leicestershire partnership has already made fibre broadband available to tens of thousands of homes and businesses across the county. This has transformed the way people use the internet, the services that local businesses are able to provide, and the way that everyone can learn online. We’re delighted to have been selected by the council to work with them to extend that reach even further in the coming years.”

Interestingly today’s announcement also hints at some of the additional areas that can expect to benefit from Leicestershire’s second contract, which include Frisby on the Wreake, Eastwell, Seagrave, Shawell, Lockington, Congerstone, and Orton-on-the-Hill, as well as additional parts of South Wigston, Stoney, Stanton, Blaby, Ullesthorpe and Burton on the Wolds.

Once completed it’s expected that a total of more than 360,000 homes and businesses across Leicestershire will have access to “fibre broadband“, which includes BT’s separate commercial rollout of the technology to 290,000.

But as usual the project fails to clarify precisely what % can expect to receive “superfast” (24Mbps+) speeds by completion, although it’s probably quite close to the 95% figure demanded by Government. On top of that we can’t help but notice that this is yet another scheme with a late 2018 completion date, a full year past the Government’s 2017 target.