Planning Application in Oxfordshire Reveals New BT Fibre Coverage

A small slither of fresh news from the £25 million Better Broadband for Oxfordshire project reveals that the Harlequin Group (on behalf of BTOpenreach) has submitted a planning application for the installation of 8 new ‘up to’ 80Mbps capable FTTC street cabinets in Sonning Common, Gallowstree Common and Peppard Common (South Oxfordshire).

Most of the area appears to connect into BT’s telephone exchange at Kidmore End, which serves roughly 2,500 premises with standard ADSL2+ broadband and similar unbundled (LLU) services via Sky Broadband and TalkTalk. Apparently the new cabinets will ensure that BT’s FTTC service reaches some 1,876 of those homes and businesses.

The Better Broadband scheme, which aims to extend BTOpenreach’s superfast broadband (24Mbps+) network to 90% of Oxfordshire in England by the end of 2015, recently announced that it had already helped 10,000 additional premises gain access to the new service via 497km of new fibre optic cabling and 56 extra street cabinets (a further 92 are standing and in the process of being connected).

Work is also underway to figure out how the local authority can match an additional £2.15m that has been allocated through the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) Superfast Extension Programme, which ideally wants to expand superfast broadband to 95% of the area by 2017.