Superfast North Yorkshire Broadband Project Boosts Economy by £220m

A new report predicts that the Superfast North Yorkshire project, which is working with BT to make FTTC/P based superfast broadband (25Mbps+) services available to around 90% of local premises by late 2016 and possibly 95% within a few years (details), could boost the local economy by £220m.

The report, which was produced by Regeneris (they also did another recent BT study), examined the impact of SFNY’s first deployment phase that recently completed (here). Phase 1 of the project originally aimed to achieve broadband coverage at 25Mbps+ for approximately 86% of the premises in North Yorkshire and the City of York by the end of October 2014.

In practice it’s not entirely clear if the original Phase One target was actually met in May 2015 and the new report suggests that the “superfast” (25Mbps+) speeds goal actually reflected coverage of 77% for Phase One, with 100% coverage of 2Mbps “basic broadband” connectivity, all of which adds some degree of confusion into the mix.

Never the less, the total budget for Phase 1 of SFNY is claimed to have been £30.95m and today’s report suggested that the effort has already contributed £36 million (Net Additional Gross Value Added) to the local economy, which could rise to £220 million in the next two years.

However we also note that the actual costs incurred for building the network will not be known until a true-up process has been undertaken with BT, so there may need to be some future adjustment to these figures.

The results are, much like a similar study that was conducted for Cornwall (here), based off various surveys with local businesses (e.g. changes in their internet use and the impact on turnover, profitability and employment etc.), as well as a review of the logic model and financial data for the programme etc. It also considered local take-up of the relevant service among local homes and businesses, which has been fairly strong (details).

Overall it’s suggested that a large proportion of small and medium sized (SME) businesses have become more productive and grown as a result of the expanded “fibre broadband” coverage. The analysis further indicates that one new job has been created for every ten firms connected to the network.

However the impact analysis also suggests that, despite strong early uptake of superfast broadband, there continues to be a case for supporting activities aimed at getting businesses to better understand the commercial case for SFB. “Two thirds of the businesses surveyed that had not connected to the SFNY network cited a lack of clarity in the costs and benefits as the main reason,” said the report.

Naturally it should be said that giving an accurate appraisal of the economic impact from faster broadband is always going to be somewhat challenging and subject to the usual winds of unpredictability. Put another way; take all this with a pinch of salt, although the vast majority would agree that faster broadband connectivity is generally a good thing.

Read the Full SFNY Report
http://www.superfastnorthyorkshire.com/media/1257178/..Final-Report-30-10-15.pdf