South Gloucestershire UK Sees Fibre Broadband Cover 17,000 Premises

The joint public and private “Great Western Broadband” project to roll-out BT’s “superfast” (24Mbps+) FTTC/P network to 94% of South Gloucestershire by the end of March 2015 has completed its first major deployment phase, with 17,000 premises covered (2,000 more than originally planned).

Sadly the related GWB project, which includes the separate goal of ensuring that 91% of premises in Wiltshire can receive the same service by March 2016, has had a tendency to only publish bite-sized updates and the lack of a central website doesn’t help, but you can track the progress here and here. Never the less it’s noted that the figure of 17,000 breaks down as follows: 14,000 with access to superfast speeds of 24Mbps+ and the remaining 3,000 get sub-24Mbps.

Some of the South Gloucestershire communities to have benefitted so far include Aust, Badminton, Barrs Court, parts of Bradley Stoke town, Charfield, Downend, Lower Almondsbury, Lower Olveston, Marshfield, Pucklechurch, Rangeworthy, Rudgeway, Severn Beach, Thornbury town centre, Tockington, Tormarton, Warmley, Wick, Wickwar and Winterbourne. Horton and Hawkesbury Upton will also get access to “fibre broadband” by the end of this month.

John Goddard, South Gloucestershire Council, said:

“The additional coverage of 2,000 households and firms across South Gloucestershire has meant that more communities have been able to benefit than we originally planned when the rollout of superfast broadband began two years ago.

It’s a great achievement to have completed the first phase of this rollout on time to more premises within the original funding. We are already planning ahead towards the second phase of the rollout when even more communities will be able to benefit from having access to superfast speeds.”

Overall, including separate commercial deployments, more than 105,000 homes and businesses in South Gloucestershire can now get “fibre broadband“, while BTOpenreach have laid more than 140 km of fibre optic cable and installed over 85 green roadside street cabinets.

Meanwhile the project in Wiltshire has helped to upgrade an additional 26,000+ premises. It’s also worth noting that uptake of the service reached 15% (both areas combined) at the end of last year, which is only applicable to premises that have been upgraded by the above scheme. Further funding and coverage is planned.