UPDATE Derbyshire UK Offers Small BT FTTC Broadband Rollout Update

Do you live in the English county of Derbyshire? If so then aside from a very tentative deployment map you’re probably starved for information about the progress of your local £27.67m Digital Derbyshire project, which is working to make BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network available to 95% of local premises by the end of 2016.

Sadly not all of the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) supported projects are as informative as those that issue frequent roll-out updates and unfortunately the Derbyshire scheme, which is home to a website that doesn’t even have a news section, does tend to fall similarly short. But the good news is that we have spotted a tiny update via the Derby Telegraph.

Locals might recall that the first street cabinets went live at the Markham Vale Enterprise Zone during early April 2014, with more set to follow in Bolsover, Alfreton, Tibshelf and Holmewood (around 2,000 premises) by the end of June 2014.

The latest update notes that work has now also got underway in Wirksworth, Leabrooks, Eckington and Shirebrook, although it’s unclear whether this means an engineering survey or actual cabinet upgrades etc. At present around 17,000 premises in these areas can access FTTC and over the coming weeks this is set to reach 21,000.

At this point it’s worth noting that BT’s £2.5bn commercial UK deployment of FTTC/P technology has already made the service available to more than 337,000 Derbyshire homes and businesses, while the state aid supported scheme intends to add an extra 88,000 premises to that.

Now if they could just put these updates on the projects own website and explain how many will actually receive “superfast” (25Mbps+) speeds then that would be a big help.

UPDATE 4th June 2014

Work is also now underway to connect 1,600 premises in Hathersage, Grindleford and the Hope Valley.