£5 million investment to extend fibre further in Leicester
Around 10,000 more homes and businesses in Leicester are set to benefit from fibre broadband in the next couple of years.
A total of £5 million will be invested to increase the existing coverage of fibre broadband in the city.
Leicestershire County Council’s Superfast Leicestershire partnership with BT has already made fibre broadband available to around 65,000 premises since July 2014.
Now, the city of Leicester will soon benefit from the new technology thanks to an additional £2.8 million investment from BT, £1.1 million funding from the Local Growth Fund and a further £1.1 million from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme.
Leicester’s City Mayor Peter Soulsby said: “Leicester City Council is delighted to be working with partners to increase the coverage of superfast broadband in Leicester, providing first class connectivity to support business innovation and growth.”
One of the first areas to benefit from this investment is Hamilton Office Park, a small business development around three miles north-east of the city centre.
Sanjay Khuller, senior partner at Haines Watt chartered accountants, said: “It’s great news that Superfast Leicestershire has made fibre broadband available to Hamilton Business Park. Lots of small to medium sized companies are based here and having access to faster download speeds is crucial for many. Superfast broadband means we can upload and download large files faster, easily exchange files with our clients and access our documents much quicker than we could previously and I’m sure the new technology is going to prove very popular.”
Other parts of the city set to benefit from this extra funding include parts of Stoneygate, Aylestone, Evington and Beaumont Leys.
Steve Henderson, BT’s regional director for next generation access, said: “Our Superfast Leicestershire partnership has already made huge progress in making fibre broadband available across the county. Fibre plays such an important role in everyday life and to our local businesses and we’re delighted to be extending the programme into areas in and around the city centre.”
Superfast Leicestershire is on course to bring high-speed fibre technology to more than 82,000 premises[1] in Leicestershire by the end of 2017.
All of the engineering work for Superfast Leicestershire is being carried out by Openreach, BT’s local network business, meaning people with access to its open, wholesale fibre network can choose from a range of internet providers.
Benefits of fibre broadband include faster download and upload speeds, the ability to access the internet via multiple devices without experiencing a slow connection, a better online gaming experience, improved file sharing for businesses and access to Cloud computing allowing business users to work flexibly.
For more information about Superfast Leicestershire visit www.superfastleicestershire.org.uk or look out for #SuperfastLeics on Twitter.
[1] The 82,000 premises is 72,000 as part of the first Superfast Leicestershire contract, of which 65,000 are already complete, and an additional 10,000 premises from this injection of further funding.
