York hits 75,000 fibre broadband milestone
News welcomed by Hugh Bayley, York Central MP and Cllr James Alexander, Leader of City of York Council
More than 75,000 homes and businesses in York are now able to access high-speed fibre broadband, BT announced today.
The engineering milestone was passed as the latest fibre street cabinet, outside the National Railway Museum, was switched on and became the most recent to be upgraded under BT’s £2.5 billion commercial roll-out.
Hugh Bayley, York Central MP, joined senior members of BT’s Yorkshire and Humber board and the leader of City of York Council at the cabinet on Leeman Road, to find out more about how the technology works and why it’s essential for York’s economic future.
He said: “Broadband speed is a subject close to the heart of many of my constituents, so it’s been fascinating to see today the progress that is being made and just how these powerful connections are carried across York.
“To ensure York’s future success we need the right building blocks in place. One of these is having the digital technology to support our people and economy. It’s very interesting to see today how the deployment is rolling out across North Yorkshire.”
CllrJames Alexander, leader of City of York Council, added: "Super-fast fibre broadband offers huge benefits which will undoubtedly help York's economy to flourish. Better, faster communications help businesses to grow and stimulate job creation. It has also been cited as a reason for business relocation. At home, local people can do more online at faster speeds and on multiple devices.
“York is the number one place in the north to invest and so it is encouraging digital infrastructure providers such as BT are playing such a huge part in announcing that 75,000 homes and businesses in York can now experience those benefits for themselves."
The 75,000 total includes nearly 65,000 homes and business now able to benefit as part of BT’s commercial roll-out and more than 10,000 premises covered by the Superfast North Yorkshire programme.1
For York, this programme has been a tremendous success - by the end of both roll-outs the majority of York will be covered by fibre on the BT network. This will support York’s ambition to become the UK’s leading digital city.
Openreach engineers have laid more than 140,000 kilometres of fibre cable – enough to stretch around the City’s medieval walls 35,000 times. One hundred and eighty five new cabinets have been built and thousands of engineering man hours have been worked.
Tom Keeney, BT’s regional director, who lives in York, said: “BT has led the roll out of superfast broadband in the UK and, working in partnership with Superfast North Yorkshire, are playing a huge part in helping York become one of the best connected cities in the UK. We are fully behind York’s goal of becoming the country’s leading gigabit city.
Super-fast fibre broadband in York offers huge benefits to local residents and businesses and will help our local economy to flourish. Better, faster communications help businesses to grow and stimulate job creation. At home, local people can do more online at faster speeds and on multiple devices.
“Whatever you’re doing online, you can do it better and faster with fibre. Whether it’s shopping, downloading music and video, watching TV, social networking, studying or researching homework, once you’ve switched to fibre you’ll never look back. Outside the home, it also has huge potential for public services and local firms.
“Businesses tell us it’s helping them in many ways, from day to day activities like downloading software, collaborating with clients and moving large data files around to big business decisions like expanding the workforce or introducing better quality IT services at less cost.”
Openreach, BT’s local network business, is primarily deploying fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology, where the fibre runs from the exchange to a local roadside cabinet. FTTC delivers download speeds of up to 80Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps1 — and could deliver even faster speeds in the future.
However in York more than 4,500 premises in locations such as Fishergate, Fulford Road and Huntington Road have access to fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology, where the fibre runs all the way to the home or business, offering a top current download speed of 330Mbps.2
One York business owner who has experienced for herself the benefits fibre broadband can bring is Sophie Jewett, owner of the York Cocoa House, a chocolate emporium on Blake Street.
She said: “Superfast broadband has been a massive help in creating and maintaining an effective presence online as well as managing our own business systems. We use our website to share detailed information about where we are and what we do, however much of our business is run through on-line cloud based systems, it allows our team to work effectively from the premises, at home or at meetings keeping up to date with our event management, client management, stock and staffing systems.
“It’s vital I can access and react to bookings, enquires and transaction data quickly and efficiently. Our Twitter account now has more than 4,000 followers so again it’s important that all our team can Tweet ‘in the moment’ and share what's happening in the business each day."
Unlike other companies, Openreach offers fibre broadband access to all service providers on an open, wholesale basis, which underpins a competitive market and delivers real customer choice. For further information on Openreach’s fibre broadband programme visit www.superfast-openreach.co.uk.
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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
1The Superfast North Yorkshire project was the first in the UK to deploy fibre broadband using Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) and European Union (ERDF) funds following the signing of a £36.4m contract led by North Yorkshire County Council and BT in July 2012.
The Superfast North Yorkshire project is part financed by the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme, which is one of the funds established by the European Commission to help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support local businesses and create jobs. For more information visit www.communities.gov.uk/erdf
2These are the top wholesale speeds available from Openreach to all service providers; speeds offered by service providers may vary.
