The UK Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) and neighbouring Buckinghamshire County Counil (BCC) have decided to establish a collaborative partnership and will now work together on a joint plan and procurement process for bringing superfast broadband download speeds of "up to 40Mbps" to local residents and businesses by 2015.

The government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office recently identified that 8.1% of premises (39,126) in Hertfordshire and 17% in Buckinghamshire (54,703) suffered from slow or no broadband connectivity at all. As a result it allocated £1,110,000 to HCC and £2,100,000 to BCC to help fill the gap.


The current plan, which foresees using a mix of fibre optic cabling and wireless internet technology, will go to tender in late summer 2012 and under the guidance of a new joint project team. As usual the funding will be met by local authorities and central government, matched by contributions from commercial broadband ISPs.

BDUK seeks to ensure that 90% of "people in each local authority area" can access a superfast broadband (25Mbps+) ISP service by 2015 (the remaining 10% will only get a minimum speed of 2Mbps).