BT Picked for GBP20m Fibre Broadband Contract in Nottinghamshire UK

The Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) has awarded its state aid supported £20 million contract for expanding the coverage of fibre optic based broadband connectivity to BT, which aims to make it’s up to 80Mbps capable FTTC network available to 95% of local premises by the end of March 2016 (the rest will get at least 2Mbps).

The Superfast Broadband Nottinghamshire project, which should help 52,000 extra local homes and businesses gain access to the new network, will be jointly funded by £2.5m from the county council (plus £800k from Nottinghamshire Borough and District Councils), £2.7m from Europe, £4.5m from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office and £9.3m from BT.

It’s worth pointing out that the European Regional Development Funding (ERDF) will specifically be used to help bring fibre connections for many of the 6,000 small and medium sized businesses in Nottinghamshire.

Alan Rhodes, Leader of the County Council, said:

“I am very proud to be able to bring a fibre broadband service to 95% of the county’s homes and businesses. By working with BT and other partners including the district and city councils, we will end the digital divide experienced by many of our rural areas especially in Newark and Sherwood, Bassetlaw and Rushcliffe.

The County Council has led the project from the start, going the extra mile by securing an additional £2.7 million of European funding to help even more businesses reap the benefits of joining the information superhighway.”

Bill Murphy, BT’s MD for Next Generation Access, added:

“Deploying fibre broadband is a substantial challenge but a vital one which will help local businesses to be competitive and ensure they remain in the county. It can also play an important role in attracting more firms to the county, helping to create jobs for local people.”

As usual the language used in the press release fails to make completely clear what proportion of those covered by BT’s new fibre network will actually receive superfast broadband (25-30Mbps+) speeds as only the peak FTTC rate is listed (some 330Mbps capable FTTP will also be deployed but only a tiny amount), which isn’t a very reliable indicator.

Curiously the bottom of BT’s press release states that the new investment will “create a next generation fibre optic cable based broadband network for 98% of homes and businesses“, which could suggest that the 95% figure does reflect “superfast” speeds. We are currently querying this.

BTOpenreach will now commence its usual pre-rollout survey phase and the actual deployment is then expected to get underway during next spring 2014. The first premises are currently anticipated to be connected in July 2014.

UPDATE 1:41pm

BT have said that they won’t be able to give us an answer on the “superfast” question until after the planning / survey phase.