£2.5million boost for fibre broadband in West Sussex
£2.5million boost for fibre broadband in West Sussex
More than 3,000 more homes and businesses across West Sussex will be able to access better, faster fibre broadband following an additional £2.5 million of funding.
The latest funding will extend the rollout of ‘superfast’ fibre broadband by West Sussex County Council in partnership with BT and central government, which began enabling the first connections to homes and businesses last summer.
So far, more than 35,000 premises are able to upgrade to faster fibre broadband as a result of the first phase of the West Sussex Better Connected rollout, which aims to provide ‘superfast’ coverage for more than 90 per cent of the county by spring 2016.
The new contract builds on the first phase of the Better Connected project and the private sector’s commercial rollout of the technology to help West Sussex County Council achieve its aim of bringing fibre broadband within reach of 95 percent of the county’s homes and businesses by end of 2017, in line with government targets and available funding.
The £2.5million investment is being made jointly by West Sussex County Council and central government. BT is providing additional funding of £0.5million during the lifetime of the project.
Bill Murphy, BT’s managing director for next generation access, said: “We are pleased to have the opportunity to work with West Sussex County Council to further extend the availability of high-speed fibre broadband in the county. These are exciting times for West Sussex. BT is committed to making this technology as widely available as possible. It offers huge possibilities for businesses and households whether they are using it to work more efficiently and find new customers or for online learning and entertainment purposes.This project will build upon the success of our own commercial rollout in the county as well as our existing partnership with West Sussex County Council.”
West Sussex County Councillor David Barling, cabinet member for residents’ services, said:
“The additional funding will ensure we meet the government’s new target of 95 per cent coverage of the UK by ‘superfast’ broadband by the end of 2017. However, we recognise that more work needs to be done to provide comprehensive coverage of broadband services in our county due to the local geographical and network challenges we face. The government has articulated an ambition to increase coverage and we wait to hear further details about how this may be achieved, and funded.”
The Better Connected West Sussex Broadband project is expected to make superfast broadband available to more than 44,000 premises by spring 2016. It builds on BT’s on-going commercial fibre deployment across the county, which has already given more than 300,000 homes and businesses access to the technology.
People wanting to find out if fibre broadband is in their area should enter their phone number or postcode in the checker on the Better Connected website:
http://www.westsussex-betterconnected.org.uk/home
Residents and businesses wanting to upgrade will need to contact the broadband service provider of their choice and place an order.
Notes to editors:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/107803477@N08/sets/
For more details about BT’s commercial fibre broadband roll-out plans go to www.bt.com/furtherwithfibre
About Better Connected
Better Connected is an exciting project to bring better, faster broadband to West Sussex.
We aim for the majority of residents and businesses to be able to access fibre-based broadband speeds of 24Mbps by spring 2016.
The project builds on the continuing commercial deployment of better, faster broadband in the county and means that by spring 2016:
More than 90% of properties in West Sussex will have access to NGA superfast fibre-based broadband infrastructure of a minimum of 24Mbps
All properties in the areas which are eligible for funding through the project should be able to access basic broadband speeds of a minimum of 2Mbps.
