West Sussex UK and BT Sign Extended Superfast Broadband Rollout Deal

The West Sussex Better Connected scheme in England, which is working with BT to expand the coverage of “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) to around 98% of local homes and businesses by Spring 2016 (90% will get “superfast” speeds of 24Mbps+), has signed a new deal that will extend this to another 3,000+ premises by the end of 2017.

The new Superfast Extension Programme (SEP) contract is being supported by £1,250,000 from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme (up from the original allocation of £860,000), while an additional £2.5m will come from the council and finally BT will contribute around £500,000 to the pot.

The current Phase 1 BDUK contract aims to benefit a total of 44,000 premises and so far some 35,000 of that have already been completed. By comparison the new contract looks rather meagre, although the council predicts that it will still “extend the rollout of ‘superfast’ fibre broadband to reach 95% of the county“.

David Barling, WSC’s Cabinet Member for Broadband, said:

“The additional funding will ensure we meet the government’s new target of 95% coverage of the UK by ‘superfast’ broadband by the end of 2017. However we recognise that more work needs to be done to provide comprehensive coverage of broadband services in our county due to the local geographical and network challenges we face. The government has articulated an ambition to increase coverage across ‘nearly all’ of the UK and we wait to hear further details about this may be achieved, and funded.”

Last year it was anticipated that this second phase of the West Sussex Better Connected project would most likely begin deployment before spring 2016.