Home
 » ISP News » 
Sponsored Links

Cheshire UK Sets Aside £7.25m of Public Funding to Boost Broadband Cover

Wednesday, Sep 13th, 2017 (12:26 pm) - Score 558

The Connecting Cheshire scheme in England has confirmed that their roll-out of “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services across Cheshire and Warrington will soon be extended, which is thanks to the securing of an additional public investment worth £7.25 million.

So far the project, which has been working alongside Openreach (BT) and reflects a partnership of 4 local authorities (Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton and Warrington), claims to have reached more than 97,000 premises with faster broadband speeds. As part of that they’ve also switched on more than 600 new roadside “fibre broadband” street cabinets. Overall around 98% of the county can now access a “fibre” network, although “superfast broadband” speeds of 24Mbps+ can only reach about 93-94%.

The existing roll-out programme has since been boosted by another extension programme, which is being supported by clawback (gainshare) from earlier project phases due to high take-up (45.5% in areas upgraded by the scheme), and this is due to complete by Summer 2018 (here).

Advertisement

The good news is that a further £7.25 million of public investment has now been set aside for a future Phase 4 (aka – Digital 2020) contract, which includes £3.61m from the EU, £2.54m from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme, £960,000 from Connecting Cheshire (local authorities) and a related business contribution of £140,000 as part of a 20% contribution to the local broadband connection voucher scheme.

David Brown, Cheshire East Council Member for Infrastructure, said:

“I am delighted this additional funding has been secured and that the Connecting Cheshire project is going from strength to strength.

Faster broadband has been proven to drive economic growth and help businesses create jobs.

The Digital 2020 programme has been designed to ensure we can help as many communities and businesses as possible benefit from faster speeds.”

Apparently the work to select a supplier for Phase 4 has already begun and as such it’s not yet possible to confirm precisely what is likely to be delivered, although it’s a fair bet that operators’ like Openreach (BT) and Gigaclear are likely to be taking an interest. Similarly FTTP based “ultrafast broadband” technologies seem to be playing a bigger role in many of these later phases.

Assuming all goes to plan then the roll-out for Phase 4 could begin during early 2018.

Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and .
Search ISP News
Search ISP Listings
Search ISP Reviews

Comments are closed

Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
100Mbps
Gift: First 3 Months Free
Sky UK ISP Logo
Sky £22.00 - 26.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £23.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £25.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheap Unlimited Mobile SIMs
Talkmobile UK ISP Logo
Talkmobile £11.95
Contract: 12 Months
Data: 120GB
iD Mobile UK ISP Logo
iD Mobile £16.00
Contract: 24 Months
Data: Unlimited
Smarty UK ISP Logo
Smarty £18.00
Contract: 1 Month
Data: Unlimited
ASDA Mobile UK ISP Logo
ASDA Mobile £19.00
Contract: 24 Months
Data: Unlimited
Three UK ISP Logo
Three £20.00
Contract: 24 Months
Data: Unlimited
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
100Mbps
Gift: First 3 Months Free
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £19.00
300Mbps
Gift: None
Sky UK ISP Logo
Sky £22.00 - 26.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
toob UK ISP Logo
toob £22.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Beebu UK ISP Logo
Beebu £23.00
100 - 160Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Promotion
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms , Privacy and Cookie Policy , Links , Website Rules , Contact
Mastodon