UPDATE N.Ireland Secures Another GBP17m to Extend Superfast Broadband

The on-going Northern Ireland Broadband Improvement Project (NIBIP), which only began one year ago, appears to have been boosted by another £17 million investment in order to help bring BT’s faster “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) connectivity to an additional 38,000 premises.

The first phase of the NIBIP only began last February 2014 with an investment of £23.5m and an aim to push the faster broadband service out to an additional 45,000 premises by December 2015. At the last count some 17,500 homes and businesses had already been put within reach of the service (here is a list of the upgraded street cabinets).

In other words, the project is still on target and BT recently confirmed that a total of 200,000 premises in Northern Ireland can now receive its ‘up to’ 80Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) connectivity (with some FTTP); this includes the operators own pure commercial upgrades.

The vast majority of Northern Ireland is thus already well served with Next Generation Access (NGA) style infrastructure and Ofcom’s 2014 Infrastructure Report put the coverage figure at 94%, although this fell to 77% for those able to receive superfast broadband (24Mbps+) speeds (here). So even after December 2015 there will still be areas that need an upgrade and this is where today’s investment comes in.

Colm O’Neill, CEO of BT Northern Ireland, said:

“The Superfast Rollout Programme marks another successful step in Northern Ireland’s broadband journey, helping to strengthen its position as one of the best regions in Europe for fibre speeds and availability.”

Ed Vaizey, UK Digital Economy Minister, said:

“Today’s announcement is fantastic news for Northern Ireland – this additional funding will see tens of thousands more homes and businesses able to access superfast speeds and will provide a tremendous boost to Northern Ireland’s economy.”

Apparently the new investment will see the UK Government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS / BDUK) contribute £7 million towards the extension project, which will be matched by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI). On top of that BT has agreed to commit £3 million of its own money.

Unfortunately the details that have been released so far do not offer a clear timescale for the extension work or give any indication of what the total coverage for “superfast broadband” speeds will be once completed. We are attempting to find out more.

UPDATE 10:26am

BT has clarified that the extra investment won’t strictly be an additional 38,000 premises, instead it will aim to provide “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) speeds to homes and businesses that may already have existing standard broadband capable connections.