BT has finally put pen to paper on a deal to provide superfast broadband in rural parts of Cumbria, following lengthy discussions in the northern region.
The Connecting Cumbria project has been one of the more controversial initiatives under the government’s Broadband Development UK (BDUK) scheme, which is providing funding for superfast broadband developments in rural areas.
In June, the county council rejected bids from both BT and Fujitsu, telling them to go back to the drawing board.
Back in July, Fujitsu backed out of bidding for the contract, leaving only BT, but the local authority said it was still not guaranteed the ISP would seal the deal. Then in September, Cumbria County Council finally confirmed it had gone with BT, although it was only today that a contract was signed.
The project will see 93 per cent of Cumbrian homes and businesses covered with superfast broadband connections by the end of 2015. The first stage of the roll-out should begin in spring 2013, now that the EU has given state aid approval for BDUK-funded initiatives.
BT said both Fibre-to-the-Cabinet will cover most of the region, and Fibre-to-the-Premises technology will be available in certain areas, offering speeds of up to 300Mbps.
The value of the deal stands at £51 million. BT is contributing £15 million, whilst BDUK is handing over £17.1 million, £13.7m is coming from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and £5m will be supplied through the Performance Reward Grant (PRG) from all councils in Cumbria.
“Today’s announcement is fantastic news for Cumbria and I’m pleased that one of the first areas to benefit from the Government’s Rural Broadband Project is, in fact, one of the most rural regions in England. This multi-million scheme will provide Cumbrian residents with some of the fastest broadband speeds available in the UK by 2015,” said communications Minister Ed Vaizey.
There are around 7,000 businesses that operate from villages, hamlets and isolated properties in Cumbria. Superfast broadband could let these businesses use more Internet-enabled services, such as cloud offerings and better payment services.
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Crazy situation wiring up superfast broadband to low density population areas when in some major cities you have to wait 3 month for a phone/broadband connection and then get 3MBits or less.
The money would be a lot better spent bringing the centers of population up to speed first - makes a lot more social and ecconomic sense - but guess that's not PC enough!.