Northamptonshire Expand BT and BDUK Fibre Broadband at no Extra Cost

The £11.4m Superfast Northamptonshire project, which is currently working with BT to make superfast broadband (FTTC/P) services available to about 90% of premises by September 2015 (possibly later reaching 95-100% by 2017), has announced that an additional 3,000 homes and business will now benefit and at no extra cost

The first 90% target initially sought to help upgrade around 53,000 local premises, which would have otherwise been left neglected, while the additional 3,000 has only become possible thanks to BTOpenreach’s engineer surveys discovering that greater coverage could be achieved than originally envisaged.

In particular it’s understood that an additional 13 street cabinets can now be installed within the existing budget, which should bring coverage to parts of Woodford Halse, Brackley and Yarwell for the first time, while also expanding existing availability in Kettering, Daventry, Towcester, Kingsthorpe, Desborough, Northampton town centre, Rushden and Roade.

Andre Gonzalez De Savage, Cllr Northamptonshire County Council, said:

“This is excellent news for the people of Northamptonshire and particularly for those in the areas which will benefit from this latest development. Having fast broadband speeds is becoming increasingly important for households and essential for businesses that want to compete in the global economy.”

Owen Moody, BT’s East Midlands Regional Director, said:

“The Superfast Northamptonshire partnership is going from strength to strength. By working closely with the council, we have been able to reach even more Northamptonshire homes and businesses, at no additional cost to the project.

Fibre broadband boosts the competitiveness of local businesses, helping them to find new customers and operate more efficiently, whilst opening up a host of new learning and development opportunities for local people as well as providing easier access to local authority and health services.”

The long-term goal for Northamptonshire is to achieve 100% coverage of superfast broadband and an additional £5.5m was recently awarded by the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office in order to help make that happen and push beyond the existing 90% target. This just goes to show that related coverage plans can remain fluid and open to change.