95 Percent of Nottinghamshire UK Now Covered by Superfast Broadband

The Better Broadband for Nottinghamshire project in England has confirmed that its first Broadband Delivery UK based contract has now completed, which means that 95% of local homes and businesses are now within reach of a superfast broadband (24Mbps+) service.

The £19.8m contract was unique because Nottinghamshire has become one of the few counties able to deliver “superfast broadband” (FTTC/P) coverage of 95%, which came at a time when most of the other Phase 1 deals were attempting to meet the lower goal of 90% within a similar time-frame. Elsewhere the Government’s 95% target for the rest of the UK won’t be met until the end of 2017.

It’s worth adding that the Phase 1 Contract should have delivered the service to an additional 52,000+ homes and businesses in the county, including 400 new roadside street cabinets and 1 million metres of new fibre optic cable. According to the original deal, the footprint of BT’s raw “fibre broadband” network (including sub-24Mbps areas) should now be standing at around 98%.

Councillor Diana Meale, Chair of Economic Development Committee, said:

“Access to good quality broadband is just as important as access to basic utilities for many residents and businesses today, making BBfN a vital investment in Nottinghamshire’s infrastructure and future economic prospects.

Delivering the scheme in a diverse county like Nottinghamshire has been challenging, but I am delighted that we have been able to deliver the first phase of such a huge project ahead of schedule and within budget.

Whilst it will always be our ambition for every home and business in the county to have access to superfast broadband, the fact that coverage in Nottinghamshire is well ahead of the national and regional average should be celebrated and places our area at an advantage when trying to attract the inward investment, jobs and better quality of life for our residents that we crave.

Phase two of BBfN is being more targeted at those districts with more rural areas where, despite making large strides in improving coverage, more investment is needed to bring them up to the level of coverage enjoyed in the rest of the county. In many cases, people and businesses living in those towns and villages have been unable to access the online services, learning, communication and opportunities that many of us now take for granted – but not for much longer.”

As hinted above the latest BDUK based Superfast Extension Programme (Phase 2) contract, which is worth £9.2m, was officially signed in May 2015 (here) and will add another 17,000+ premises to the total and take 24Mbps+ coverage to 98% of the county by Spring 2018 (we’d guess this will deliver virtually universal “fibre broadband” coverage).

Apparently the Phase 2 contract is starting immediately (9 months earlier than initially planned) and will see more than 130 towns and villages in the county either get access to the service for the first time, or see existing provision boosted to superfast speeds. Most of the work is set to be focused upon the rural areas of Bassetlaw, Newark and Sherwood and Rushcliffe (more details).

Finally, it’s noted that 27% of premises in areas covered by the first phase of BBfN have already signed up to receive the new service, which is some of the highest uptake across the UK and means that the county will be in a good position to clawback (gainshare) a piece of its public funding from BT in order to reinvest into further improvements.