It was recently announced that a further £5.3m is to be invested in Norfolk’s broadband rollout. This will further extend the reach of high speed fibre broadband across Norfolk and is part of the Better Broadband for Norfolk (BBfN) programme.
The additional amount is from funding that BT is making available to extend Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) projects across the UK as a result of the success of the projects in delivering higher than expected take-up levels. The money is being made available to Norfolk to reinvest in providing further superfast broadband coverage to even more homes and businesses and much earlier than originally planned.
The £5.3 million is being made available as a result of a ‘gain share’ clause in the phase 1 BDUK contract BT agreed with Norfolk that allows the funding BT has received to be reinvested over a number of years into further coverage if take-up is better than the 20 per cent* expected in BT’s original business case. This announcement is bringing forward that investment and making it available much earlier than planned. The higher take-up rate to date has resulted in BT making a new business case assumption of reaching 30 per cent take-up in these areas.
Better Broadband for Norfolk is currently working with BT to obtain the extra money and to decide how it could be used to extend coverage throughout the county, targeting many of those properties in hard to reach places. It is expected that by the end of 2015 it will be known what additional coverage the extra funding will have achieved.
Dr Marie Strong is Chair of the Broadband Working Group and member on the Better Broadband for Norfolk Steering Group said: “This extra money means we will be able to bring high-speed broadband to a significantly greater number of rural homes and businesses in Norfolk. With public money invested in the Better Broadband for Norfolk programme, it’s vital that we get the best value for money from the contract and recouping over £5 million that we can reinvest in the project is an excellent result.
BBfN continues with the overall rollout across Norfolk but there is still more work to be done. Many villages and market towns have already benefitted from high speed broadband. To date over 169,000 premises now have access to faster broadband. However some of the more remote parts of Norfolk will prove more of a challenge to deliver better broadband to them, due to the cost of rollout. The extra funding will help meet some of those challenges.
Another broadband provider trying to achieve better coverage in the more remote/rural areas of Norfolk is Chamber member, Wispire.They have just appointed a new Chief Executive, Steve Maine who has joined WiSpire after holding management roles at BT, Kingston Communications and mobile service provider Solaris Mobile.WiSpire was launched four years ago by the Diocese of Norwich.It is a local provider of high speed broadband across Norfolk who use a combination of exchanges and parish churches across the county as the platform to deliver high speed, reliable broadband and leased line internet access. Mr Maine said: Non-availability of broadband will become more and more important, especially in relation to rural counties such as Norfolk.”
Caroline Williams, CEO of Norfolk Chamber said: “To enable Norfolk businesses to communicate more effectively and be instrumental in creating jobs for Norfolk and moving the economy forward, we need access to high speed broadband. Improving broadband is as equally as important to the Norfolk business community as road and rail improvements. Extra funding will boost the BBfN programme and help deliver improved broadband to more homes and businesses.”Norfolk Chamber also welcomes the appointment of Mr Maine as Chief Executive of WiSpire and we look forward to a continuing to support WiSpire through their Chamber membership.”
* This 20 percent take-up rate was based on international comparisons and BT’s experience in its own commercial roll-out.
