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Articles for Category Tag - Building Digital UK

Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire UK Sign Extended Fibre Broadband Deal

3rd February, 2015 (12 Comments)

The state aid supported CSW Broadband project has signed a new £10.73m Phase 2 Broadband Delivery UK contract with BT, which will help a further 17,000+ premises to receive “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) and push total coverage to “nearly” 94%. But worryingly the project will not complete until summer 2019, well behind the Government’s end of 2017 target.

Digital Scotland Unveils Next 43 Areas for BT Fibre Broadband Upgrades

3rd February, 2015 (13 Comments)

The Digital Scotland project has today revealed the next batch of 43 locations (54,000 premises), including parts of the remote Outer Hebrides, Mull and the Isle of Bute, that will benefit from their on-going £410m project with BT to ensure that “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services are available to 85% of premises in Scotland by the end of 2015 and 95% by the end of 2017.

UK Government Moot Using Public Sector Networks to Help Boost Broadband

3rd February, 2015 (2 Comments)

The United Kingdom is crisscrossed by a variety of different Public Sector Networks (PSN), which are used to supply councils, Network Rail, universities (JANET), security / military services and so forth. But many of these networks are not fully utilised and the Government intends to harness this to help improve broadband for homes and businesses.

DEFRA UK Report Calls for 10Mbps Universal Broadband Commitment

3rd February, 2015 (15 Comments)

The Commons Select Committee for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has today published the results of their inquiry into the roll-out of faster broadband Internet access to rural areas, which among other things calls for the current Universal Service Commitment (USC) speed of at least 2Mbps (Megabits) to be increased to 10Mbps.

UPDATE 39 England Growth Deals Gain £1bn Funding Boost to Help Broadband

29th January, 2015 (5 Comments)

The government has today announced that they intend to invest a further £1 billion into 39 Local Growth Deals with businesses and local authorities across England, which among other things will help to roll-out superfast broadband connectivity to even more homes and businesses.

Cornwall UK Confirms Growth Deal for 99% Fibre Broadband Coverage

29th January, 2015 (1 Comment)

The Government’s Minister for Rural Affairs, Dan Rogerson (LibDem), will later today launch a new Growth Deal for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in England that will confirm the Local Authorities existing plan to push “fibre broadband” coverage from the current target of 95% to over 99%.

UPD Public Accounts Committee Still Critical of BT and BDUK Broadband Rollout

28th January, 2015 (47 Comments)

The Public Accounts Committee, which holds some responsibility for examining the Government’s public expenditure, has today hosted a third session in order to examine if any progress has been made on their prior recommendations for the joint state aid supported BT and Broadband Delivery UK rollout of superfast broadband.

BDUK Superfast Broadband Rollout is Ahead of Schedule and Made Savings

28th January, 2015 (22 Comments)

The National Audit Office has, in anticipation of today’s Public Accounts Committee event, published a useful report into its views on how effective the joint BT and Broadband Delivery UK scheme has been in terms of its costs, coverage and competition. The report finds that BT’s Phase 1 deployment is running “ahead of schedule” and BDUK predicts total savings of approximately £72m by 2017-18, which could be reinvested.

BDUK Gifts Northern Rail GBP750k for On-board Train FREE WiFi Upgrade

28th January, 2015 (12 Comments)

Commuters travelling on Northern Rail’s trains from Leeds and Bradford (England) can now access free on-board wireless Internet (WiFi) connectivity thanks to a new scheme that has been funded by £750,000 from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme. This appears to be the first on-train scheme that BDUK has funded.

Progress in Tackling Warwickshire’s Slow Exchange Only Broadband Lines

27th January, 2015 (1 Comment)

The Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme is increasingly starting to tackle the historic curse of BTOpenreach’s pure copper Exchange Only Lines (EOL) and the latest example of this comes from several remote rural villages in the English county of Warwickshire.

UPDATE Norfolk Sign BT Deal to Expand Fibre Broadband Coverage to 90%

27th January, 2015 (10 Comments)

The Better Broadband for Norfolk project in England, which currently aims to make BT’s superfast broadband (FTTC/P) service available to 80% of local premises by the end of 2015, has today signed a second (Phase 2) contract worth £17.9m that will extend the services reach to 90% of the county’s homes and businesses.

BT Moot Free FTTP Broadband Trials for New UK Housing Developments

26th January, 2015 (24 Comments)

BTOpenreach are currently reviewing their approach to the provision of Superfast Broadband (24Mbps+) at major housing developments and, as part of this strategy, the operator is evaluating a series of “free trials” for their 330Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology across the United Kingdom.

Worcestershire UK Cheers BDUK and BT Fibre Broadband Uptake Surge

26th January, 2015 (19 Comments)

The £20m Superfast Worcestershire scheme in England, which is using state aid to help BT deploy “high-speed fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services to 90% of local premises by June 2016, appears to have seen take-up of related services skyrocket since its seemingly dismal showing of 3.2% in September 2014.

Gloucestershire and Herefordshire Reveal H1 2015 Fibre Broadband Upgrades

23rd January, 2015 (1 Comment)

It’s been awhile since we ran any coverage on the £56.6m Fastershire project (still the best name ever), which aims to make BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network available to around 90% of premises in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire by the end of 2016 (148,000 premises). But the good news is that we now have the roll-out plan for the first half of 2015.

Another Tale of BT and UK House Developers Not Building Good Broadband

22nd January, 2015 (75 Comments)

Residents of the new Woodilee Village estate between Lenzie and Kirkintilloch in Scotland, which includes 900 contemporary homes built by CALA, Charles Church, Miller Homes and Springfield, are campaigning for better broadband connectivity after they were left with “up to” 2Mbps download speeds (plus uploads of 300-400Kbps) and told that they’d have to fork out £15k to £30k for an upgrade.

Westminster City Council Calls for Better Business Broadband

21st January, 2015 (13 Comments)

The Westminster City Council in central London has added its voice to the growing calls for local businesses to be given access to better broadband connectivity, which comes after it was earlier revealed by Ofcom that only 47% of the city’s premises have access to “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) speeds.

UPDATE “Luton” Best and “Hull” Worst, UK Cities for Superfast Broadband

19th January, 2015 (15 Comments)

The Centre for Cities, which claims to be a non-partisan / independent think-tank that dedicates itself towards understanding and improving city economies, has published its annual 2015 Cities Outlook report to reveal the United Kingdom’s best and worst performing cities across various criteria. One of the criteria they judge is superfast broadband penetration.