The Northern Lincs Broadband project in England today announced that the rural village of Appleby has become one of the first to benefit from their new Superfast Extension Programme (SEP) contract with BT, which will expand “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) to an additional 3,400 premises.
The original contract has already put related services within reach of around 92.5% of local homes and businesses, although this figure falls to a shade below 90% for those able to receive 24Mbps+ “superfast” speeds. Overall some 31,000 additional premises have benefitted, most of which might otherwise have been left neglected by the private sector.
By comparison the second contract, which was signed last March 2015, initially touted a £1.99m investment and planned to extend “fibre broadband” coverage to 97.3% of Northern Lincolnshire by March 2017 via 76 new street cabinets.
Shortly after that a further pot of £3.1m was secured (includes “savings” made during the first contract), which they said would “take superfast to over 99% of the area“. But today’s update indicates that the completion of phase two has also been pushed back into 2018.
Rob Waltham, Deputy Leader of North Lincolnshire Council, said:
“North Lincolnshire Council is leading the way in providing high speed broadband. Working with BT, we have already made the technology available to more than 31,000 premises in Northern Lincolnshire, including more than 4,000 businesses. And phase two is on track and progressing well.
We fully expect to reach 99 per cent of premises in Northern Lincolnshire by 2018, taking us beyond the government’s national target of 95 per cent.”
An interactive roll-out map can be found on the project’s website (here) and some of the first communities to benefit from the extension include Bonby, Whitton, Roxby, Eastoft, Garthorpe and Fockerby, Westwoodside, Epworth, Kirton in Lindsey and North Killingholme.
It’s worth pointing out that Quickline also have a fixed wireless broadband network covering some bits of the same areas (here), which was itself partly funded through an earlier Broadband Delivery UK Market Test Pilot. However if we recall correctly the Quickline pilot is focused on being offered into specific areas that won’t be served via the BT linked Phase 1 + 2.
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