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Articles for Category Tag - Building Digital UK

Welsh Businesses Offered GBP10K Ultrafast 100Mb Broadband Vouchers

21st November, 2014 (3 Comments)

The Welsh Government has announced the launch of a new Ultrafast Connectivity Voucher scheme that will provide assistance of up to £10,000 towards the capital costs of helping firms in Wales to install a broadband service offering speeds of more than 100Mbps (Megabits per second), albeit only applicable to businesses in Enterprise and Local Growth Zones.

North Yorkshire’s UK BT Fibre Broadband and FTTrN Rollout Suffers Delay

20th November, 2014 (9 Comments)

The Superfast North Yorkshire project in England, which was supposed to be rolling out BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services to 90% of local premises by the end of October 2014 and possibly reaching 100% by the end of 2017, is apparently running “13 weeks behind schedule” and BT’s plan to deploy its new Fibre-to-the-Remote-Node (FTTrN) technology in the county may also have to wait another year.

BT FTTP Rollout in Dolphinholme Continues Following B4RN Spat

20th November, 2014 (75 Comments)

Residents of Dolphinholme village in Lancashire report that BT’s engineers have returned to resume their state aid fuelled deployment of 330Mbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology in the area, which is despite B4RN’s community funded 1000Mbps FTTP service being deployed to homes on one of the exact same streets.

EU Leans Towards Stricter Broadband ISP Contracts and Closed Networks

17th November, 2014 (5 Comments)

The European Commission’s (EC) new Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Günther Oettinger, has hinted that he might be about to adopt a distinctly less pro-consumer position on home broadband services and open access network flexibility than the person that he is effectively replacing, Neelie Kroes.

UPDATE City of London Corp “fed up” with BT – Will Fix Slow Broadband Itself

14th November, 2014 (12 Comments)

The City of London Corporation, which in July criticised BT for an “unacceptable” failure to make superfast broadband available to SME businesses within the heart of London’s Square Mile (here), has said they’re still “fed up” with being ignored by the operator and have thus committed to resolve the local connectivity problems themselves.

UPDATE The 46 Unsuccessful UK Rural Community Broadband Fund Bids

14th November, 2014 (1 Comment)

The Government has responded to a recent Freedom of Information (FoI) request by revealing a breakdown of both successful and unsuccessful bids to their much criticised £20m Rural Community Broadband Fund (RCBF), which originally set out to help rural areas (i.e. in the last 10% of England) gain access to superfast broadband (24Mbps+).

UPDATE Superfast Broadband Delivery UK Rollout Reaches 1.5m Premises

13th November, 2014 (6 Comments)

The Government’s national Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme, which aims to make fixed line superfast broadband (24Mbps+) connections available to 95% of people in the United Kingdom by 2017, has now helped more than 1.5 million homes and businesses to gain access to the service (up by +500K since August 2014). Superfast connections can now allegedly be taken by 80% of the UK.

Ship Recovers Submersible Plough to Continue BT Scotland Fibre Optic Rollout

12th November, 2014 (0 Comments)

The cable laying ship Rene Descartes (Orange Marine), which almost two months ago lost a 8 tonne submersible plough (“Elodie“) worth £3.6m that was being used to deploy 20 new BT submarine fibre optic cables around the western side of Scotland’s Highlands and Islands region, has now fully recovered its hardware.

Cotswolds Broadband Tender for GBP6.8m FTTP Rollout in West Oxfordshire

11th November, 2014 (11 Comments)

The Cotswolds Broadband project, which has long planned to roll-out an open access 100Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to the majority of homes and businesses in West Oxfordshire (Chipping Norton), has now secured £6.8m in funding and is preparing to issue its Invitation To Tender for a supplier.

EU Court Rejects Vtesse Networks Appeal vs State Aid for BT’s Broadband

11th November, 2014 (2 Comments)

Fibre optic developer Vtesse Networks, which was only last month gobbled up by Interoute Communications, has lost its appeal at the General Court of the European Union, which challenged the decision to award state aid to BT for its deployment of superfast broadband (FTTC/P) services in Cornwall and Isles of Scilly (England).

BT Deploys FREE WiFi Wireless Internet to Carlisle City Centre

10th November, 2014 (0 Comments)

BT has successfully deployed a “free and unlimited” public WiFi wireless Internet hotspot service in the heart of Carlisle (i.e. most of the city centre and Longtown) in Cumbria (England), which will be extended to include Brampton later this month.

BT “Fibre Broadband” Expands to 150,000 Extra Premises in Scotland

10th November, 2014 (6 Comments)

The £410 million Digital Scotland project has confirmed that 150,000 additional homes and businesses across the country can now gain access to BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network thanks to the state aid supported scheme, which aims to cover 85% of Scottish premises by the end of 2015 and 95% by the end of 2017.

Airwave Preps Trial of Wireless Broadband Service in Rural North Yorkshire

10th November, 2014 (2 Comments)

Slough-based Airwave, which in June 2014 was selected as one of eight pilot projects for the Government’s £10m Innovation Fund (part of the national Broadband Delivery UK scheme), has announced that the rural village of West Witton (Wensleydale, England) will be among the first to benefit from their new Fixed Wireless Access technology trials.

Superfast Wales Expands “Fibre Broadband” to 276,000 Extra Premises

6th November, 2014 (2 Comments)

The state aid supported £425m Superfast Cymru project, which is working with BT to make faster “fibre broadband” (predominantly FTTC and some FTTP) connectivity available to 96% of premises in Wales by the end of spring 2016, has so far helped to reach an additional 276,320 homes and businesses.

Broadband Delivery UK Progress as Cheshire Reaches Half-Way Point

3rd November, 2014 (1 Comment)

The £28.5m Connecting Cheshire project in England has become the latest Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme to reach the half-way mark after it announced that 40,000 additional local homes and businesses had now been connected to BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network, which aims to reach 96% of premises across the region by the end of summer 2015.

Manufacturers Criticise “Poor” National UK Broadband Infrastructure

3rd November, 2014 (19 Comments)

A new report from the EEF trade association, which claims to champion manufacturing and engineering in the United Kingdom and Europe, has highlighted the problem of “deteriorating confidence” in wide areas of the country’s infrastructure, especially the road networks, broadband connectivity and energy supply.

DEFRA Committee Launch Fresh Inquiry into UK Rural Broadband Provision

1st November, 2014 (50 Comments)

A Commons Select Committee for the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has launched a new inquiry that will examine the current broadband coverage in rural areas. It will also look at the “Assisted Digital” (i.e. Digital by Default) support being offered to isolated communities and farmers who struggle to get online.