Staffordshire’s BDUK and BT Superfast Broadband Rollout Progressing

The £27.35 million Superfast Staffordshire project in the West Midlands (England) has now helped around 13,000 local homes and businesses (mostly in Rugeley) to gain access to BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network and its future deployment focus is now slowly switching towards the sensitive rural Moorlands (e.g. Peak District).

Overall the scheme aims to make “fibre broadband” services available to 97% of the county by spring 2016 (88,000 additional premises), which falls slightly to 95% for those able to receive “superfast” speeds of greater than 24Mbps (Megabits per second). BT’s separate commercial deployment of the same technology has already enabled around 370,000 local premises to get access to the service.

So far the roll-out has helped parts of Ash Bank, Blackshaw, Burntwood, Burton Upon Trent, Cannock, Clifton Campville, Colton, Fordhouses, Heath Hayes, Hednesford, Lichfield, Kings Bromley, Marchington, Rugeley, Sedgley, Stafford, Stoke Trinity, Tamworth, Trentham, Waterhays Dimsdale, Yarnfield and Yoxall. A useful list of upgraded street cabinets can be found here.

Work is still continuing in many of the above areas and future deployments are also set to take place over the next 3-6 months in Alstonefield, Biddulph, Blythe Bridge, Churnet Side, Endon, Hartington, Ipstones, Leek, Longnor, Oakamoor, Onecote, Rushton Spencer, Tean, Waterhouses and Wetley Rocks.

The projects progress map has also been updated with the latest roll-out plan until December 2014 (here), although some of the above listed areas will also be playing a part in deployments during the early 2015 phase. The scheme also requires BTOpenreach to lay more than 1 million metres of fibre optic cable and install around 500 new street cabinets.

As with all other BDUK projects it’s also anticipated that 100% will gain access to broadband speeds of at least 2Mbps by the completion date. We put this update together ourselves because the Staffordshire scheme is good at saying where it’s gone, but less effective at keeping people informed about their future roll-out plans.