Dorset UK Moots GBP4m Ultrafast Broadband Upgrade for Businesses

The Dorset County Council (DCC) in England has started an open procurement exercise to eventually find a supplier and infrastructure to help them build an “ultrafast broadband” network to reach businesses in the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) area.

The existing £37m Superfast Dorset project has already made FTTC/P based superfast broadband (24Mbps+) services available to 90% of premises in the county (here) and they’ve also signed a second Superfast Extension Programme contract with BT (here), which will add another 3,000 premises across 50 local communities by around 2017/18.

Dorset is now busy working to make faster “fibre broadband” services available to 97% of local premises by the end of 2016 (around 95.6% can expect to receive 24Mbps+), although the latest procurement is separate from that project and focused on delivering “ultrafast” (usually 100Mbps+) connectivity to businesses that benefit from Dorset’s Local Enterprise Partnership.

At present the Dorset Ultrafast Broadband 2016/17 procurement notice is intended for “Prior Information Only” and appears designed to invite interested suppliers to join a market consultation, which must be conducted prior to the commencement of any actual procurement(s).

The document indicates that a total investment worth £4 million is on the table, with the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme contributing £2m to the pot and another £2m coming from the Dorset LEP itself.

Short Procurement Description

Dorset County Council, on behalf of the Superfast Dorset partnership with the backing of Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership, is commencing an open procurement for Ultrafast broadband infrastructure. There is the opportunity, through 4 000 000 GBP of secured BDUK (2 000 000 GBP) and Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (2 000 000 GBP) funding, to progress ambitions building Ultrafast broadband infrastructure prioritised to areas of economic growth in the Dorset LEP area.

Crucially this appears to be separate from Dorset’s on-going Gainshare Consultation, which is attempting to decide how best to expand local FTTC/P broadband coverage by reinvesting an initial allocation of £1.457m that has been secured from BT through contract clawback.

Details of the offer are due to be discussed during an open consultation event this Friday (1:30pm) at the County Hall in Dorchester, which will also be attended by Chris Townsend, the CEO of BDUK. Credits to Patrick Cosgrove for pointing us towards the document.