Cornwall UK and BT Sign £17.6m Phase 3 FTTP Ultrafast Broadband Rollout

The Superfast Cornwall project, which has a long term aspiration to deliver 99% coverage of “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) by 2020, has today taken the next step by signing a new deal with Openreach (BT) that will put a further 7,000+ premises within reach of 1Gbps “full fibre” (FTTP) by 2019.

The original £132m Phase 1 contract, which was supported by up to £78.5m from BT and £53.5m from Europe (ERDF), has already made fixed line “fibre broadband” (FTTC and FTTP) services available to 95% of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (i.e. an additional 238,000 premises and around 85,000 of those are FTTP).

Since then a second (Phase 2) follow-on contract, worth £7.6m, has also begun work and aims to cover “at least” 8,600 premises of the estimated 30,000+ premises in the county that could still benefit from an upgrade to “superfast broadband“. The Phase 2 deployment is on-going and aims to be completed by the end of 2017 or early 2018.

As it stands today the coverage of “fibre broadband” in Cornwall has reached approximately 97%, although data from Thinkbroadband estimates that only 87.51% can actually receive a “superfast” speed of 30Mbps+. Suffice to say that further contracts have long been planned and today’s Phase 3 announcement forms part of that on-going work.

Funding for Phase 3 is being supported by £8.5m from the ERDF, £1.5m from BT, £3m from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme and £1.1m from Cornwall Council.

Matt Hancock, Minister of State for Digital, said:

“The transformation of the digital landscape in Cornwall to date has been tremendous, but there’s still more to do. I’m delighted that Government investment is going to help take fibre connections right to the door of more than 7000 more Cornish homes and businesses, ensuring they can get the fast and reliable connectivity they need, both now and for the future.”

Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said:

“This major investment is a vital new chapter in the story of rolling out high-speed broadband across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. A huge amount has already been achieved since our superfast broadband partnership with Cornwall Council started seven years ago – and we recognise there is more to do.

As we reach further into the most remote areas, the challenge becomes greater, but we are committed to rolling out this exciting technology as far as possible.

This third phase further strengthens Cornwall’s position as a leader in the UK for ultrafast broadband and one of Europe’s foremost digital economies in a rural area with a world-leading broadband network. The latest roll-out will run the length and breadth of the county to many of the remaining communities most in need of high-speed broadband.”

Sadly we haven’t been given any detail about what % coverage of superfast broadband the Phase 3 contract will actually deliver in Cornwall. Nevertheless the first deployment locations under this contract are expected to be announced by the end of 2017 and the first premises should start to benefit from spring 2018 and it will complete by the end of 2019.

On top of that the Cornwall Council are planning to announce details later this year of a new grant scheme, which will help to “provide faster broadband for the remaining premises not included in any planned fibre broadband programmes“.

Lest we forget that Avanti and the ERDF have already launched a similar £1.2m “Superfast Satellite Broadband” scheme that helps to provide eligible SME businesses (i.e. those not covered by the above plans) with broadband speeds of up to 40Mbps (here). The scheme estimated that roughly 1,000 businesses in the region would take-up the offer in its first year (it only started in June 2017).

Apparently more than 90,000 premises in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly have already connected to Openreach’s fibre network through 60 different ISPs.