The project will provide a fibre broadband infrastructure to around 33,000 premises, of which around 32,000 will have access to superfast speeds of at least 24Mbps by spring 2016.
On completion of the rollout, the aim is for all premises within Milton Keynes, Central Bedfordshire and Bedford to receive a minimum of 2Mbps but with a vast majority achieving speeds well in excess of this.
The new fibre network will transform broadband speeds across the rural areas. According to Ofcom, the average downstream speed in Milton Keynes is 10.8Mbps, whilst it’s 14.1Mbps and 13.7Mbps in Bedford and Central Bedfordshire respectively.
BT has been chosen following an extensive and thorough selection process. The company is contributing £6.2m towards the overall cost of deployment in “non-commercial” areas while Milton Keynes Council is contributing £2.4m, Central Bedfordshire Council contributing £1.2m and Bedford Borough Council contributing £0.44m, with £2m coming from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds.
Bill Murphy, managing director NGA for BT, added: “This is great news for the people living in these areas. It is important to support local economies, as well as helping new development and infrastructure in these communities. This is where fibre broadband can play an essential role by revitalising towns, villages and hamlets, helping businesses to be connected in these locations.”
Communications Minister Ed Vaizey said: “This project is fantastic news for the thousands of homes and businesses across Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire and Central Bedfordshire, and will be instrumental in driving growth, boosting the local economy, and achieving the Government’s objective of reaching 95% of UK premises by 2017.”
Engineers for Openreach, BT’s local network business, will build the new fibre infrastructure. Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) will be the main technology deployed. This can deliver wholesale downstream speeds of more than 24Mbps (and in some cases up to 80Mbps), and upstream speeds of up to 20Mbps. Fibre to the Premises technology – delivering ultra-fast wholesale speeds of up to 330Mbps – will also be deployed in certain areas and will become available on demand in FTTC areas.
The new fibre-based network will be open to all communications providers on an equivalent basis. Households and businesses in Milton Keynes and Bedfordshire will therefore benefit from a highly competitive market, bringing greater choice and affordable prices from a wide range of service providers. It will also boost the competitiveness of local businesses, helping them to find new customers and operate more efficiently, whilst opening up a host of new learning and development opportunities for households.
For local businesses, the fibre network will underpin the introduction of many new services and applications. Big business applications driven by new ‘cloud’ services will be within the reach of enterprises of all sizes. Computer back up, storage and processing will be faster, and the use of high-quality videoconferencing will become a viable possibility.