The clawback spam continues as the Northern Lincs Broadband project confirms that its first roll-out contract, which completed in June 2015 after bringing BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network to 92.5% of premises, delivered “savings” of over £1m that will be put back into further expanding coverage.
Overall around 27,000 homes and 4,000 businesses benefitted from the first Broadband Delivery UK based contract and a new Superfast Extension Programme (SEP) deal has already been signed (here).
The new contract will extend the service to at least another 4,000 premises and is supported by funding of £1.18m from BDUK and £2m from BT, which it’s claimed should help to push the “fibre broadband” coverage to around 97% by March 2017 (we expect coverage of 24Mbps+ speeds to reach a few % points less than 97%).
Apparently some £1.1m of BT’s commitment has surfaced through clawback (here) and another £1m+ has been found from other “savings” in the first contract (the precise figure has yet to be confirmed), which could also be put back into expanding coverage and brings the total investment to over £4m.
The clawback (gain share) mechanism requires BT to return part of the investment when take-up of the new service passes beyond the 20% mark, which is currently said to be worth up to £129m across the United Kingdom.
Liz Redfern, Leader of North Lincolnshire Council, said:
“The first phase of the project was a huge success. It was in the top six nationally for completing the rollout the quickest. I’m positive we will add to this success with the second phase. It is fantastic news that BT is providing additional funding due to the take up of broadband being higher than expected. This shows how successful the first phase was.”
The first communities expected to benefit from the new contract should start to go live from March 2016 onwards and we now know that some of the areas likely to be targeted are as follows: Barrow, Barton, Crowle, Eastoft, Manton, Garthorpe, Howsham, Keadby, Scunthorpe, Whitton and Winterton (more will be confirmed in the future).
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