The UK government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has today announced the allocation of £4.4 Million to help Northern Ireland fill in any remaining spots of weak broadband ISP coverage with faster internet access services. Some 97% of homes and businesses in the region can already access superfast broadband, with 81% being covered by the BT-Infinity style FTTC (up to 40Mbps) technology.

The money will come from the government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office, which has a budget of £530m (rising to £830m by 2017) to help 90% of "people in each local authority area" gain access to a superfast broadband (25Mbps+) service by 2015 (the last 10% must make do with a minimum speed commitment of 2Mbps).


At present the average broadband "modem sync speed" (i.e. a more optimistic download rate than real-world performance) for Northern Ireland is just 6.3Mbps, with 23% of the region's population still receiving less than 2Mbps.

The figures are surprising, especially given the wide availability of superfast services, and point to a limited uptake of superfast connectivity. Related services are often more expensive and this may be discouraging some adopters, while others may not be aware of its availability.

The Northern Ireland Executive will decide how to use this money to support the roll-out of broadband across the country.