16
May
2013
|
23:00
Europe/London

Pixham Village in Dorking leads multi million pound superfast Surrey roll-out

Another 100 homes and businesses in Pixham Village, Dorking to get high-speed fibre broadband 

News welcomed by county council deputy leader Peter Martin 

Pixham Village in Dorking today became the first community to benefit from the multi-million pound Superfast Surrey project. Around a further 100 homes and businesses in Pixham Village will have access to broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps , three months ahead of schedule. 

Superfast Surrey, a partnership between Surrey County Council and BT, builds on BT’s own commercial roll-out of fibre broadband in the county so that nearly 100 per cent of Surrey homes and businesses will have access to fibre broadband by the end of 2014. Ultra-fast broadband speeds of up to 330Mbps will be available ‘on demand’ wherever fibre broadband has been deployed, if Surrey businesses want to upgrade to even faster speeds . 

Some parts of Pixham already had access to fibre broadband through BT’s own commercial roll-out of the technology. 

Peter Martin, Surrey county council deputy leader, said: “It is great news that we have been able to bring fibre broadband to Pixham Village ahead of schedule. The arrival of this exciting technology is a major step forward for this community. Our aim is to make Surrey the best connected county in the UK. The benefits will be huge, with an estimated boost of around £30 million to the economy annually. Superfast broadband is the tool our businesses need to grow, prosper and innovate in a competitive market place. It is also vital for all Surrey communities to have fast, reliable internet access so they don’t get left behind.” 

Peter Cowen, BT’s regional partnership director for the South East, said: “This investment in fibre broadband will boost the local economy and help to create or protect local jobs both in communities like Pixham Village and across the whole of Surrey. It will be of enormous benefit to local businesses which can use the faster speeds to improve their competitiveness both within the UK and abroad.” 

BT was chosen as the private sector partner in the project following an extensive selection process by the county council. The company is contributing £13.9 million towards fibre deployment in “non-commercial” areas, while the county council is contributing £20 million, and a further £1.3 million is coming from the share of BDUK (Broadband Delivery UK) funds. 

The majority of premises in Surrey will be getting access to some of the best speeds in the country via Superfast Surrey and BT’s commercial roll-out of fibre broadband. The high-speed service will boost the competitiveness of local firms and offer new ways of flexible working, entertainment and learning opportunities for local residents. Fibre broadband gives users the ability to run multiple bandwidth-hungry applications at the same time such as sending and receiving large amounts of data much more quickly and efficiently, accessing school homework networks, watching catch up TV and learning at home via educational websites. 

At home, fibre broadband enables a family to simultaneously download a movie, watch a TV replay service, surf the internet and play games online all at the same time. A whole album can be downloaded in less than 30 seconds and a feature length HD movie in less than 10 minutes, whilst high-resolution photos can be uploaded to Facebook in seconds. 

BT’s network is open to all service providers on an equal wholesale basis and so Surrey consumers and businesses will benefit from a highly competitive market. 
Further details and postcode checks are now available at www.superfastsurrey.org.uk 

Case study Paul Knivett, 42, runs a professional photography business in Pixham Village, and has done for nearly eight years. Paul upgraded to BT’s fibre broadband recently and has already seen a massive improvement in uploading speeds, essential to his business. Paul, said: “For my business I need to upload hundreds of images at a time and some are large files up to 5 MB each. This used to be a task that I ran overnight because it took so long, now the same upload takes a fraction of the time, under an hour, it’s so much faster. The faster broadband speed has saved my business time, which is a huge benefit for me.” 

For further information please contact the BT Regional Press Office on 0800 085 0660. All our news releases can be found at www.btplc.com/news