Telford and Wrekin Sign £5.6m Deal for 98% Superfast Broadband Cover

The Telford and Wrekin Council (Shropshire, England), after sitting out the first phase of the national Broadband Delivery UK plan, has signed a £5.6m contract with BT that will extend superfast broadband (24Mbps+) connectivity to reach 98% of local homes and businesses by the end of 2017.

The borough was one of the few parts of England to already have good superfast broadband availability and as such it saw little need to be involved with the Government’s initial coverage target of 90%, although in July 2014 the council finally confirmed a strategy to re-join the Broadband Delivery UK scheme so as to improve coverage via the Superfast Extension Programme (here).

As a result of this the new Superfast Telford project, which is funded by £2m from the local council, £1.6m from BT and £2m from BDUK, should be able to extend BT’s superfast FTTC/P network to an additional 9,300 homes and businesses in the area.

Councillor Charles Smith said:

“By providing the infrastructure for faster fibre broadband, we’re supporting our local businesses to more easily and efficiently connect with customers while coping with ever changing business needs as they develop and grow. It’s also becoming more and more important for our local residents to access faster speeds as being online becomes a regular part of modern family life.

Superfast broadband not only makes uploading and downloading quicker but means that everyone in a family can do what they want all at the same time – enabling people to strike a healthy balance between work and play.

It is also vital to have speedy access as more and more services from the council and other organisations develop online facilities for customers to use. Compared to other projects across the country, Telford’s implementation is small in terms of number of premises, but it delivers one of the highest levels of fibre coverage seen to date.”

Apparently BTOpenreach will start the initial survey and engineering work during the Autumn 2015 period and it’s hoped that the first premises should be able to connect from Spring 2016.