BT is reportedly running ahead of schedule with its £132 million (£53.5m from ERDF and £78.5m from BT) 'Big Build' project in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. The national UK telecoms operator currently aims to make superfast broadband ISP services available to almost 90% of the regions businesses and homes by 2014.

According to Comms-Dealer and Thinkbroadband, BT has managed to upgrade nine communities in East Cornwall (Liskeard, Callington, Launceston, Dobwalls, Bude, Kilkhampton, Marhamchurch, Drakewalls and North Hill) at least three months early. The upgrades will now complete by December 2011 instead of March 2012 as originally planned (Dobwalls was originally due in 2013).

BT's earlier May 2011 progress update (here) revealed that superfast broadband was expected to be available through half of the regions telephone exchanges by the autumn of 2012. Some 90,000 of Cornish homes and businesses should have it by the end of March 2012.


The bulk of BT's rollout will make use of its slower 'up to' 40Mbps (soon to be 80Mbps) Fibre-to-the-Cabinet ( FTTC ) service, while a small proportion will benefit from its vastly superior 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises ( FTTP ) technology.