High-speed boost for more than 3000 homes and businesses in Wigton thanks to Connecting Cumbria partnership
High-speed fibre broadband is now available to more than 3,000 homes and businesses in Wigton.
Engineers from Openreach – BT’s local network business - have switched on 12 new green fibre broadband roadside cabinets in the area.
Hundreds of Wigton households and businesses have already joined the high-speed revolution by signing up for the service since the arrival of the first fibre cabinet in Autumn 2014.
Most recently, Openreach engineers have also worked hard to make fibre available to more than 900 premises in the six surrounding rural villages of Baggrow, Plumbland, Harriston, Bothel, Westnewton and Gilcrux.
Since October 2013, the Connecting Cumbria project – a partnership between Cumbria County Council and BT - has enabled more than 550 fibre broadband cabinets across the county, with more being switched on every day. Over 120,000Cumbrianhouseholds and businesses now have access to fibre as a result of the project.
One local business already enjoying the benefits of having fibre is family run Jacksons Models – which specialises in the sale of diecast models to collectors around the world.Brenda Jackson, who runs the shop with son Daniel, said having high-speed broadband had slashed the time taken to upload new data to their website and boosted their in-house payment system.
Brenda, who signed up to a superfast service in October last year, said: “We upload changes to our website overnight – things like new price listings, new photos and details of items for sale – and before the upgrade, we would open up the next morning to discover errors or images missing on the website where they hadn’t uploaded properly because the broadband signal had dropped out.Now we don’t have to worry about any of that. We sell around 60 per cent of our stock online and have a worldwide mail order service supporting a multinational customer base. Our website is our virtual shopfront so it’s vital that we can update it quickly and efficiently.”
“We now market ourselves online a lot more and have a very active Facebook page. Superfast lets us respond to customer queries, process orders and upload new content instantly. Over the last few years more and more of our business has moved online – having fibre gives us the assurance and efficiency we need to support that.”
David Southward, Cumbria County Council’s Cabinet member responsible for economic development, said: “It is reassuring to see Connecting Cumbria reaching homes and businesses in communities however small or remote they may be. It reflects our ultimate goal which is to provide every resident, business, organisation and visitor with access to superfast fibre broadband.”
Mike Blackburn, BT North West regional director, added: “Superfast broadband is now seen as an essential rather than a luxury. Superfast broadband provides the cornerstone for prosperous communities, helping local people build their skills and knowledge whilst encouraging the creation of new businesses and jobs - and then helping to keep those businesses and jobs in the local communities.
“There is no quick and easy way to get superfast broadband to rural areas. It involves challenges above and beyond those you would encounter in a more urban environment, but we are making solid progress. Together with our commercial programme, we have already reached nearly 220,000 homes and businesses with our fibre network in Cumbria - and we are going further.”
When an area has gone ‘live’ for fibre, people need to contact their service provider to upgrade as it doesn’t happen automatically. Because the network is ‘open’, they have a wide choice of fibre broadband providers.
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Press contact:Please contact Janet Hare in the BT Regional Press Office on 0800 085 0660. All our news releases can be found at www.btplc.com/news
Notes to Editors:
About Connecting Cumbria
Since October 2013, the Connecting Cumbria project – a partnership between Cumbria County Council and BT - has enabled more than 550 fibre broadband cabinets, with more being switched on every day. More than 120,000 households and businesses now have access to fibre as a result of the project.
The Connecting Cumbria Programme’s ambition will, by a combination of commercial investment and gap funding, enable access to Next Generation Access (NGA) broadband to 93 per cent of Cumbrian homes and businesses when added to the private sector’s commercial rollout.And Connecting Cumbria is providing two thirds of its rollout with speeds of more than 50 mbps.
There is, in addition, a commitment that all Cumbrian properties will have access to speeds of at least 2Mbps by some means by the end of the programme. This includes working with some of Cumbria’s remotest communities to extend the fibre network through innovative community projects in the hardest to reach areas.
Connecting Cumbria will ensure maximum coverage is achieved from available resources, demonstrating maximum value for money. Cumbria County Council has a continuing commitment to expand NGA broadband services and make NGA broadband service available to additional areas across Cumbria as funding becomes available.
About BDUK
Superfast Britain is a Government programme of investment in broadband and communication infrastructure across the UK. Run by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, this investment helps businesses to grow, creates jobs and will make Britain more competitive in the global race. The portfolio is comprised of three elements:
For further information: https://www.gov.uk/broadband-delivery-uk
About BT
BT’s purpose is to use the power of communications to make a better world. It is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in 180 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband, TV and internet products and services; and converged fixed-mobile products and services.BT consists of six customer-facing lines of business: Global Services, Business and Public Sector, Consumer, EE, Wholesale and Ventures, and Openreach.
For the year ended 31 March 2016, BT Group’s reported revenue was £19,042m with reported profit before taxation of £3,029m.
British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.
For more information, visit www.btplc.com
