Greater Manchester Agree GBP15m BDUK and BT Fibre Broadband Rollout

Several Greater Manchester authorities including Stockport, Bolton, Wigan, Bury, Tameside, Oldham, Trafford and Rochdale have signed a new £15 million deal that will see BT extend their “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network to a further 39,000 local premises by the end of March 2016 (900k have already been passed).

The project, which is funded by £4.6m from BT, £2.5m from the councils, £4.99m from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and £3m from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) budget, expects to boost the local economy by £80 million and create an additional 500 jobs.

Bill Murphy, BT’s MD of Next Generation Access, said:

“Access to high-speed broadband is rapidly becoming a key ingredient for economic growth and is also a major determining factor in where businesses decide to locate.

Fibre broadband opens up a whole raft of leading edge software applications that will benefit businesses – allowing them to work more efficiently, enabling people to work when and where they want to, as well as expanding their business offerings and connecting with customers, not just locally but all over the world.”

Ed Vaizey, Communications Minister, said:

“This is fantastic news for the 39,000 homes and businesses in Greater Manchester that will benefit from this £15 million project. The UK already does more business online than any other European country, and widespread access to superfast speeds will provide a tremendous boost to the economies of all eight local authority areas involved.”

It’s stated that Stockport Council has been chosen to lead the scheme and will enter into the contract with BT on behalf of the eight metropolitan boroughs. Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is also named as a delivery partner and will be responsible for the day-to-day project management and delivery of the infrastructure programme.

However Manchester and Salford are not included in the rural broadband scheme as they have already received funding through related projects, such as the Urban Broadband Fund’s £150m “Super-Connected Cities” initiative. This has since turned into a voucher scheme for businesses that want to install a new superfast broadband connection.