UPD More Cambridgeshire and Peterborough UK Broadband Rollout Details

The £45m Connecting Cambridgeshire project, which seeks to make BT’s superfast broadband (FTTC/P) speeds available to 90% of premises in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (England) by the end of 2015, has added a new page to its website that should reveal more details about the expected rollout and timetable.

The My Area pages effectively act as a new interactive online map that’s been designed help people look up ‘where and when’ they can expect to get superfast broadband in their area of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. But as with most other Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) projects the information is both vague and fairly indicative. The map itself is also rather poorly designed.

Each area has its own page, which includes:

* Whether an area is within the Connecting Cambridgeshire broadband intervention project, or will be covered fully or partly by the commercial roll-out.
* Outline date ranges for when superfast broadband is expected to be delivered in the area – subject to surveys and planning.
* Whether the area has a Broadband Champion and how to help more people get online.
* Where to find out more about the improved broadband services.

The first street cabinets are due to go live with BT’s new hybrid fibre (FTTC) service this year (December) and some additional information about the first 50 areas to benefit can be found here.

Ian Bates, CCC Cabinet Member for Growth, said:

“We know many residents and businesspeople are keen to find out ‘where and when’ the broadband roll-out will be happening in their area, so we have developed the ‘my area’ pages. This is just the start, will release as much information as we can and add more specific details as the broadband programme gets underway and cabinets start to go ‘live with fibre’.

Many issues can arise during survey or build of the network that could affect timescales including the discovery of blocked or collapsed ducts or problems with providing power to new cabinets. Some of these issues may take slightly longer to resolve, but we think people will be pleased to know that better broadband is on the way.”

It’s also worth pointing out that 90% can expect to get superfast speeds but 98% will still be covered by the FTTC platform (sub-24Mbps speeds for the 8% difference).

UPDATE 9:51am

ISPreview.co.uk has learnt that some of the 50 areas that were due to be upgraded as part of phase 1 (Dec 2013 – June 2014), such as Papworth Everard which is one of the larger villages in the project, have been pushed back to between June 2014 and September 2014. This is of course one of the reasons why such maps and rollout plans are labelled “indicative” and subject to change.