Staffordshire Confirm GBP2.4m BT Clawback to Extend “Fibre Broadband”

The Superfast Staffordshire project is the latest to confirm that BT will return £2.4 million as a result of clawback in their first Broadband Delivery UK contract, which can be reinvested to improve the local coverage of faster “fibre broadband” services.

At present the existing scheme already aims to make BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network available to 97% of local homes and businesses (roughly 472,000 premises in total), with 95% being able to access “superfast” speeds of 24Mbps+, by 2017 (note: it use to be “spring 2016“, but they’re now saying “by 2017“).

As part of the first contract more than one million metres of fibre optic cable and over 600 new street-side cabinets are being installed to connect people to the new network across the county. So far 300 of the cabinets have been completed and 53,000 premises have already benefitted out of the 88,000 goal for the phase 1 contract.

Since then a new (second) Superfast Extension Programme (SEP) contract has been signed with BT that should benefit a further 4,000 premises (once the phase 1 contract has completed), which is supported by £1,680,000 of additional funding from BDUK and £630,000 from BT (here).

Today we learn that another £2.4 million has now also been found as a result of the clawback (gain share) mechanism, which requires BT to return part of the investment when take-up of the new service passes beyond the 20% mark (this is currently said to be worth up to £129m across the United Kingdom). The council and BT are currently planning for how this should be spent.