Cornwall UK Start Phase 2 Roll-out of Superfast Broadband to 8000+ Premises

The £7.6m follow-on Superfast Cornwall contract, which is working with Openreach (BT) to expand the local availability of “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) to at least another 8,600 premises by “early 2018“, has finally begun its roll-out. So far 1,450 premises in 25 communities have been reached.

The original £132m contract, which was supported by £78.5m from BT and up to £53.5m from Europe (ERDF), has already deployed “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services to 95% of the region / 255,500 premises (NOTE: nearly 90% of Cornish premises receive speeds of 30Mbps+). More than 80,000 of the extra premises have also been covered by Openreach’s ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

However over 30,000 premises in Cornwall (England) are still unable to receive “superfast” speeds and so a second Superfast Extension Programme (SEP) contract was signed in June 2015 (here), which is funded by £2.96m from Broadband Delivery UK, £1.878m from the Council, £1m from a Growth Deal, £500,000 from the Regional Growth Fund and £1.23m from BT.

The good news is that Cornwall’s SEP contract recently entered the deployment phase, with some 25 communities already seeing a benefit.

Communities Benefiting from Latest Roll-out:

Tregony; North Tamerton; Lanivet; Carkeel; Brighton, near Rumford; Golitha Rise and Heathlands Business Park, Liskeard; Four Lanes and Sandy Lane near Redruth; Connor Downs near Camborne; Tresean/Treworgans, near Crantock; Trevelmond and Pengelly, near Dobwalls; Lanjeth near St Austell; Stoke Climsland; Widegates; Turfdown, Helland and Treffry, near Bodmin;Trebetherick; No Mans Land, Lower Clicker and Morval, near Widegates; Latchbrook, Saltash; and Fraddon.

Cornwall’s longer term goal is to reach 99% coverage of 30Mbps+ superfast broadband by 2020 and the follow-on contract above won’t be able to deliver that, thus there are already plans for a third “Superfast 2” programme that could be worth up to £16.25m (details).

The related Superfast 2 contract is expected to be agreed by the end of March 2017 and the council has signalled that they’ll also include support for alternative network providers. Some initial information suggests that Contract 2 might be able to reach another 8,000 premises, which would still leave a fair gap left to jump in order to hit the 99% coverage aspiration.

Ranulf Scarbrough, BT’s Superfast Cornwall Director, said:

“Superfast Cornwall has already made Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly the envy of rural areas across Europe. Now this latest phase includes some of the most challenging locations in the county. It shows our commitment to making faster broadband as widely available as possible. Superfast broadband is already making an important contribution to the economic success of this area because, whatever you do online, you can do it better with fibre broadband.”

Julian German, Cornwall Council, said:

“Cornwall Council remains committed to the challenging target of ensuring that every property has access to fast, reliable broadband, and these latest areas to be enabled represent another step forward into some of the most challenging rural parts of Cornwall.”

End.