First Berkshire UK Area to Benefit from £8m Broadband Rollout Named

The £2.03m Superfast Berkshire project, which aims to roll-out BT’s hybrid fibre broadband (FTTC/P) network to “around” 91% of local premises by the end of September 2015, has revealed that premises in Wargrave will be the first to benefit by the end of 2014.

At present local homes and businesses in Wargrave only have access to “basic broadband” but all this will begin to change when the latest up to 80Mbps capable FTTC street cabinets arrive on Victoria Road and School Lane during the first roll-out phase next December 2014. This appears to be slightly later than the autumn 2014 prediction presented earlier this month (here).

But as with other BDUK roll-outs BTOpenreach will not be making FTTC available to everybody in the village and other parts will apparently have to wait until September 2015. Sadly some locations, such as Crazies Hill, will not see any benefit under the current plan (though the recent allocation of £250m to the Broadband Delivery UK project might help).

Separately residents of Oakley Green Road and the village of Fifield are continuing to campaign for better broadband due to uncertainty over whether or not those in outlying areas will benefit from the upgrade (here). The Superfast Berkshire site already has a basic coverage map, which shows that a lot of areas appear to be missing off the plan.