Merseyside Connected Brings BT Fibre Broadband to North Liverpool

The £15.9m Merseyside Connected project and £150m Project Jennifer scheme have teamed up to help BT roll-out their faster “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network to reach more homes and businesses in Northern Liverpool, where the regeneration of Great Homer Street is now taking place.

The UK Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme and several Merseyside Local Authorities, including Liverpool City (LCC), Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Councils, last year signed a deal to help BT deploy their new broadband infrastructure to 98% of local homes and businesses (43,000 premises) in the metropolitan county of Merseyside (North West England) by the end of July 2016 (here).

At the time it was anticipated that the first building work on the ground would get underway during summer 2014 and, despite a distinct lack of useful roll-out updates, it’s now been revealed that 37 new street cabinets (serving 4,200 customers) have already been installed by BTOpenreach. The latest to go live is a cabinet in Everton, off Great Homer Street, which is being conducted alongside the Project Jennifer regeneration scheme.

Apparently the new cabinet will connect “superfast broadband” (25Mbps+) to 91 local business premises (this is expected to increase as the project progresses), 500 new homes, 80,000 sq ft of new retail space, 80,000 square feet of employment units, a large Sainsbury’s supermarket, a new health centre and a market.

Malcolm Kennedy, Cabinet Member for Regeneration at LCC, said:

“This substantial investment is absolutely vital if we are to make sure the city does not get left behind in the race to build technology infrastructure. The aim is to make sure that businesses are able to take advantage of faster speeds which means they have the technology to handle growing needs and enable them to win more business and custom.”

Bill Murphy, BT’s Managing Director for NGA, said:

“Fibre broadband and the speeds it brings are crucial to people and businesses in Merseyside. BT and Liverpool Council have worked hard this month at the International Festival for Business to demonstrate how Liverpool people will make the most of this fantastic technology.

From finance systems in the cloud to new ways of caring for people in hospitals like Alder Hey and entertainment in people’s homes, fibre broadband can change people’s lives for the better.”

It’s worth pointing out that the 98% coverage figure mentioned above doesn’t deliver the full picture because, as ISPreview.co.uk discovered after querying a little deeper, 89% of those in the Merseyside Connected intervention area can expect to receive “superfast” (25Mbps+) speeds and the rest will only gain access to sub-24Mbps connectivity.

Similarly we couldn’t find a constructive and forward looking roll-out update for the project, with the closest alternative being a Coverage Map that isn’t especially detailed or useful.