Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire UK Sign Extended Fibre Broadband Deal

The state aid supported CSW Broadband project has signed a new £10.73m Phase 2 Broadband Delivery UK contract with BT, which will help a further 17,000+ premises to receive “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) and push total coverage to “nearly” 94%. But worryingly the project will not complete until summer 2019, well behind the Government’s end of 2017 target.

The new deal is funded by £3.68m from Warwickshire County Council, £0.38m from Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, £4.06m from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK Superfast Extension Programme (SEP) and finally BT will also be contributing another £2.61m towards the total.

Apparently planning and surveying for the new phase will begin in 2016, and engineers from BTOpenreach should start connecting the first premises towards the end of 2016. The upgrade work will then continue during 2017, 2018 and into 2019. Aston Cantlow, Berkswell, Eastcote, Over Whitacre, Sambourne, Tysoe and Willoughby are just some of the communities that will benefit.

Ian Courts, Deputy Leader at Solihull Council, said:

“This new deal is extremely important to Solihull, helping to bring faster connectivity across the borough and particularly to the more rural area east of the M42 motorway. Good quality broadband is critical to the vibrancy of the borough, both for economic growth and social inclusion. Solihull was recently ranked as the best place to live in the UK, partly because of the good broadband we have. So, I am delighted with the progress we have made and look forward to seeing this additional investment bring real benefits to the businesses and residents of Solihull.”

Bill Murphy, BT’s MD of NGA, said:

“It’s great news that through this investment we are able to extend fibre coverage further into the rural communities of Warwickshire and Solihull, enabling residents and businesses in these communities to enjoy the benefits of high-speed broadband. Whether running a business, working from home, completing homework for school or simply keeping in touch with friends and family, access to the internet is key to us all.”

Predictable we do have an issue with the language used in CSW’s announcement, not least because the original Phase 1 contract clearly aimed to ensure that 91% would get “superfast” speeds of 24Mbps+ by spring 2016. But in that context today’s target to push “fibre broadband” coverage to 94% seems confusing (i.e. do they mean 94% coverage for “superfast” speeds or 94% including sub-24Mbps speed areas?).

It’s frustrating that these announcements persistently fail to clarify such important issues. Mercifully a quick glance at the projects website does at least offer a little more detail, specifically that the total number of premises that will be able to connect to the new network under contract 2 is 17,247 and 14,610 of those can expect “superfast” speeds. An updated coverage map has also been published to reflect the new plans.

UPDATE 4th Feb 2015

According to BT the 94% figure is for “superfast broadband“, which sounds about right given what we know of the premises passed in contract 1 and planned for contract 2. We just wish they’d say this in the press releases.