Staffordshire UK Complete Superfast Broadband Rollout Project

The state aid supported Superfast Staffordshire project, which is working with Openreach (BT) to extend the local coverage of “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) services, has today announced the completion of its contract. As a result of the rollout more than 97% of local homes and businesses can now order such speeds from an ISP.

The project, supported by an investment of £32 million (£8.06m from Staffordshire County Council, £9.62m from the Government’s Building Digital UK scheme and £14.77m from BT), originally began in 2013 when just 65% of local properties were able to connect at “superfast” speeds. The additional rollout has since helped to upgrade a further 82,500 premises via 650 green roadside cabinets (DSLAMS).

Much of this deployment was achieved via the use of hybrid Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) technology, although in recent years Openreach have also built their gigabit-capable (1000Mbps+) Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network out to 6,600 properties under the same scheme.

Separately, Openreach’s commercial deployment of FTTP technology in the county has also reached 35,000 premises (including the 6,600 above) and they intend to build out to 240,000 more over the next five years – mostly in urban and suburban areas, as well as a few rural communities.

Cllr Simon Tagg, Staffordshire County Council, said:

“As a result of our Superfast Staffordshire programme 97 per cent of county properties can connect to faster broadband speeds so it really has made a difference to our communities.

Superfast broadband is an essential for everyone’s day-to-day living, enabling people to access health, education, banking and leisure services and more. It is also critical for business operations, growth and increased productivity.

While this scheme has been completed, we are now looking forward by developing a long-term digital strategy for Staffordshire. This will focus on gigabit technology provision for all communities, maximising the benefits of 5G roll-out, connecting isolated areas and growing our digital economy.”

Kasam Hussain, Openreach’s Regional Partnership Director, said:

“Staffordshire County Council have been great partners from the outset, and alongside them, we’ve delivered a huge amount of good work across the county. Technology moves at pace, so although today is about celebrating the fantastic achievement of reaching 97 per cent of premises with superfast broadband, work is already in full flow as we make Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband widely available.

We are also fully aware that there are still some properties – in the most rural and remote parts of Staffordshire – that are still without a broadband connection that’s as quick as they might like. We’re investing heavily in rural broadband, and the council has a number of schemes available, so it’s certainly worth getting in touch to find out more.”

The catch, as hinted above, is that around 20,000 premises in the county are still unable to access “superfast” speeds, although it’s hoped that some of these may be tackled by future commercial deployments, as well as via the Government’s voucher scheme and the forthcoming £5bn Project Gigabit (F20) deployment. The latter is set to begin in Staffordshire during 2022, but we’re still a long way from getting the final details on that.