UK Gov Gifts Extra £2m for 100Mbps Broadband in Rural Gloucestershire

The UK Government has allocated £2 million of additional public investment from a new fund to help improve the coverage of ultrafast broadband (100Mbps+) services in rural areas around Gloucestershire (England), with a particular focus on poorly served parts in the Forest of Dean.

The new investment stems from the Government’s £10 million broadband fund for the South West region, which was announced as part of the 2015 Emergency Summer Budget (here) and is set to commence from April 2016.

At the time the Government said, “This fund will be available for local projects to bid into, with priority given to those delivering ultrafast speeds of 100Mbps” and today’s announcement reiterates the need to focus on providing ultrafast speeds; even though Ofcom now controversially thinks that 300Mbps+ should be the starting point for “ultrafast” (here).

Mark Hawthorne, Leader of Gloucestershire County Council, said:

“I’m delighted to announce the communities in the Forest of Dean that will benefit from this extra investment. Our work continues as we improve the broadband infrastructure right around the county so that businesses and communities of all sizes can grow.”

Gloucestershire is of course already busy working alongside the Herefordshire Council as part of the joint Fastershire project, which initially aims to ensure that around 90% of premises in the two counties are covered by BTOpenreach’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network by the end of 2016 (148,000 premises).

On top of that a related contract with Gigaclear also intends to expand the reach of their 1000Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to an additional 6,495 premises in rural Gloucestershire (Cotswolds) by the end of May 2017.

As it stands today around 88% of premises in Gloucestershire can now access a “fibre broadband” connection, with the majority able to receive “superfast” speeds of over 30Mbps. The additional £2m of funding will thus form part of the next phase beyond the above work and we already have a good idea of which areas will benefit.

Under the current plan this new investment, which will also be match funded by the council (making for a possible total of £4m), will be used in the exchange areas of Cinderford, Coleford, Drybrook, Longhope, Lydbrook, St. Briavels and Whitecroft (plus some other unconfirmed locations), aiming to give 100% coverage. BTOpenreach has already completed its roll-out in these locations, so the money is likely to focus on the bits they missed.

The suggestion is that Gigaclear may well pick-up the additional contract, which is expected to be awarded during spring 2016.