BT Sign £24.6m Deal to Rollout Superfast Broadband in Shropshire UK

The Shropshire County Council (SCC) and BT have today signed a new £24.6 million deal that will make superfast broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps (FTTC/P) available to 93% of local homes and businesses (helping 130,000 premises) by the end of Spring 2016 (excludes the Telford & Wrekin Council area).

The Connecting Shropshire project, which will also act as a test bed for BT to develop new “fibre innovations” and “other broadband technologies“, is supported by £7.84m from the government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office, £8.2m from SCC and £8.6m from BT.

Bill Murphy, BT’s Managing Director for NGA, said:

“This is fantastic news for the people of Shropshire. As communications technologies evolve it is really important that communities across the county are able to evolve with them, which is fitting since Charles Darwin is surely Shropshire’s most famous son.

Fibre broadband will bring Shropshire’s predominantly rural economy into the digital fast lane – revitalising small towns, villages and hamlets by making it possible to start and run a connected business from these locations and in the long-term, ensuring local people don’t suffer from a digital divide.”

George Candler, Commissioning Director for SCC, said:

“We have been working hard, through our Connecting Shropshire project, to drive forward improvements to broadband provision for residents and businesses, so we are delighted to have reached this point. We look forward to working closely with BT over the coming years to ensure people start seeing the benefits of faster broadband even in the remote, rural parts of our county.”

As usual the remaining 7% of local premises will still receive a download speed of at least 2Mbps. BT will also deploy its 330Mbps FTTP solution in some areas.