Posted: 05th May, 2011 By: MarkJ
NYnet, a UK public sector controlled private limited company / ISP that was formed by
North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) in 2007, has announced a new
£30 Million project called
Connecting North Yorkshire that aims to bring superfast broadband internet access to
12,000 businesses and 500,000 residents within the next three years.
The geography and population distribution of North Yorkshire has often been seen as an inhibitor to private sector telecoms investment, which is due to the
low number of connections per kilometre making it appear economically unviable.
As a result the region is home to an abnormally large amount of broadband "
Slow Spots" (0.25Mbps - 1Mbps) and "
Not Spots", where no connectivity exists at all. An
Interactive Broadband Map of North Yorkshire shows the effect of this better than most.
NYnet claims that part of the £30m is expected to come from the central governments Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office, which has an
initial budget of £530m set aside until 2015 (rising to £830m by 2017). Additional cash will be made up by the
European Development Fund (EDF) and any private firms that wish to invest in the project will need to match or even exceed this investment (e.g. 50/50 split).
NYnet's Commercial Director, Andy Lister, has suggested that the
procurement process could take up to one year to complete. After that it might take
two more years for the entire network project to be deployed around North Yorkshire. This looks set to be the first confirmed funding for one of BDUK's second-round superfast broadband pilots.