Central Bedfordshire Finish Phase 1 Roll-out of Superfast Broadband

The £12m+ Central Bedfordshire Broadband project in England claims to have completed its first Phase 1 contract with Openreach (BT), which has so far expanded the availability of superfast broadband (24Mbps+) to around 90% of the region and benefited an additional 16,422 premises.

The project, which is a partnership between Central Bedfordshire Council, Bedford Borough Council, Milton Keynes Council (the Phase 1 coverage goal for MK alone was 97% “fibre broadband“), BT and the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme, originally only intend to extend its coverage to 15,500 local homes and businesses but they’ve clearly been able to beat that (news).

Some of the most recent FTTC Street Cabinets to go live have been in Ampthill, Biggleswade, Blunham, Cranfield, Eaton Bray, Flitwick, Haynes, Heath and Reach, Hexton, Hockliffe, Leagrave, Leighton Buzzard, Lower Shelton, Luton, Potton, Sandy, Shefford, Shillington, Silsoe, Stotfold, Toddington, Whipsnade, Wilstead, Woburn Sands, Wrestlingworth and work is on-going to complete a further three in Dunstable (overall a total of 188 street cabinets have been installed).

Meanwhile the £11.2m (£4.09m from the local authorities) Phase 2 Superfast Extension Programme (SEP) contract has already begun, which aims to benefit another 8,000 premises and push superfast broadband coverage to 96.5% of the area by 2018/19. However it’s worth pointing out that the project’s official website is a jumble of conflicting targets, terminology (“fibre” vs “superfast” etc.) and funding levels, which makes it difficult to know precisely what will be delivered.