The £12.2 million Black Country Broadband Project (England’s West Midlands) has made good progress since it began deploying last year and has already expanded BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network to an additional 10,000 premises. Today the next batch of upgrades have been confirmed.
Overall the project, which sat out the first Broadband Delivery UK phase because the area (i.e. Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton) already had pretty good NGA coverage, intends to make fixed line superfast broadband (24Mbps+) speeds available to 98% of local premises by June 2017.
The development will require Openreach (BT) to upgrade 400 street cabinets in the area and 80 of these have already been completed. So far the following areas should have seen some benefit: Bentley, Blackheath, Brierley Hill, Castle, Darlaston, Ettingshall, Netherton, Priory, Rowley, St Andrews, St James’, St Paul’s, St Thomas’s, the centre of West Bromwich and Woodside.
The good news is that related work is now starting on the next phase, which will upgrade connectivity for parts of Brierley Hill, Dudley, James Bridge, Streetly, Tipton and Willenhall.
Bill Murphy, BT’s Managing Director of NGA, said:
“The roll-out of fibre broadband is progressing well and our project teams are working hard to make it available to more parts of the Black Country as quickly as possible. Every day we’re hearing how fibre broadband is touching people’s lives in new and exciting ways. Whether it’s someone working from home or running a small business, or students doing their homework or downloading films or streaming music – everything is easier, better and faster with fibre broadband.”
Unfortunately the project doesn’t have a dedicated website like other such state aid supported deployments, although you can find some information on the Black Country LEP site.
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