Shropshire UK Reveals Tentative Extension Plan for Superfast Broadband

The Shropshire County Council in England has this week revealed that the next phase (Phase 2b) of their on-going Connecting Shropshire project will aim to bring “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) coverage to another 16,015 premises via £11.7m of public funding, but the plan remains vague.

At present the original contract (Phase 1) is still working towards completion, which aims to extend Openreach’s (BT) “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network to an additional 62,000 homes and businesses by the end of 2016 (93% coverage, although only 87% will be within reach of “superfast” 24Mbps+ speeds). So far 55,522 premises have already been completed.

A smaller £5.6m extension contract (Phase 2a) was signed with BT last June 2015 (£4.7m from Broadband Delivery UK and £900,000 from BT), which aims to add another 4,000 premises to the total by winter 2017 and should help to push “fibre broadband” cover to 95% (i.e. coverage of 24Mbps+ speeds might just about hit 90%). All of this excludes any work conducted under the separate Superfast Telford project, which also exists within Shropshire.

The new contract, which has this week been put out to tender, is essentially the second part (Phase 2b) of the one above. We should also point out that a 30Mbps+ definition for “superfast broadband” has now been adopted instead of 24Mbps+ (this doesn’t make a big coverage difference); the latter is the same for all third phase contracts being signed post-June 2016.

Apparently the £11.7m of public funding for Phase 2b, which will benefit a further 16,015 premises, has been secured through both the Government’s BDUK programme and the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership. Oddly this does not include the £2.2m that is being returned by BT via clawback due to high take-up, which is said to be “ring-fenced” for future broadband investment.

Steve Charmley, Deputy Leader of Shropshire Council, said:

“As we near the end of Phase 1, we’ve already provided over 55,000 homes and businesses with access to better broadband. At the same time as gearing up to deliver our Phase 2, I’m thrilled to be starting the procurement for the next phase of work. We’re eager to close all of our gaps and particularly want solutions that prioritise coverage for premises on the slowest speeds.”

At this stage there’s no solid completion date for Phase 2b, although we believe that the goal may be to complete this specific deployment by the end of 2018 (we believe this was the expectation for all of Phase 2a + b).

However the overall programme is not due to complete until 2020 (the aim is still to achieve 100% coverage of “Next Generation Access” broadband, albeit not necessarily “superfast” speeds), so there’s still plenty of room for future contracts after Phase 2b.

No doubt the cash strapped local authority will also be hoping that Phase 2b can be boosted by private investment from any chosen supplier(s), although this is by no means guaranteed as the project is now focusing upon some of the council’s most economically challenging rural areas.

Broadband providers have now been given until 30th January 2017 to prepare and submit their bids, while Shropshire Council expects to award contract(s) in March 2017. We should then find out the final plan for Phase 2b during the spring or early summer.