Lincolnshire UK Reaches 90 Percent Fibre Broadband Coverage Goal

The Onlincolnshire project, which has been working to roll-out Openreach’s (BT) FTTC/P based “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) services to “at least” 89% of all premises in Lincolnshire (England) by April 2016, claims to have officially achieved its original contract target.

Apparently the state aid supported Broadband Delivery UK contract has so far helped to extend BT’s FTTC/P based superfast network to reach an additional 150,775 homes and businesses in the county (this is said to have delivered greater than 90% coverage), which reflects investment into areas that the private sector alone had chosen not to improve through commercial roll-outs.

The BDUK Phase One contract was funded by Lincolnshire County Council (£10.51m), Lincolnshire’s district councils (£4m), the Government’s BDUK programme (£15.34m), BT (£10.2m) and the European Regional Development Fund (£1.6m).

Richard Davies, Lincolnshire Council’s Executive Member for IT, said:

“Onlincolnshire has been one of the most successful projects we’ve ever been involved in. The initial phase of improvements has gone very smoothly, and made a big difference to broadband speeds across the county. We’re now seeing a real increase in the number of people signing up for superfast broadband, and enjoying everything that it has to offer.

We’re now looking at how we reach those really hard-to-reach places that are left. We have a further £8.8m invested in the project and we’re looking to make that go as far as possible. BT will be starting work in the near future.

The Government is also offering people in the most remote areas a discounted satellite broadband connection if they are currently unable to obtain an affordable broadband service of at least two Mbps. You can find the details on our website.

Hopefully, in time, we’ll be able to bring superfast broadband to everyone in the county.”

However a quick check of Thinkbroadband’s independent coverage database suggests that only some 87.3% of Lincolnshire can access a 24Mbps+ capable broadband connection, although their data is a little more pessimistic than the official report and may include some other unspecified differences.

The good news is that the roll-out doesn’t stop because a second Superfast Extension Programme (SEP) contract was already signed last year (here), which will extend the local superfast broadband coverage to 95% of homes and businesses by the end of 2017.

Sadly we still don’t have any final details for the SEP roll-out because, as the council told ISPreview.co.uk last week (here), they had to send back BT’s original Phase 2 proposal because of “concerns with overbuild” in existing Virgin Media areas (a revised plan is still being prepared).

Otherwise the funding for Phase Two will come from Lincolnshire County Council (£1.8m), BDUK (£1.8m) and BT (around £600k), with the remaining £4.6m also coming from BT via the ‘gain share’ agreement (i.e. returned public subsidy for contract 1 due to high take-up, which can be reinvested into contract 2 above).