Digital Economy Minister Ed Vaizey today hailed the progress of the Connecting Cambridgeshire partnership, which has already made high-speed fibre broadband available to more than 30,000 homes and businesses in rural parts of the county. During a fact-finding visit to the county today, the Minister heard how the programme had achieved the significant milestone just 34 weeks after the first green roadside cabinets went live.
To date, 150 new fibre cabinets have been installed in over 50 communities across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, giving thousands of people access to high speed fibre broadband, with many more to come over the next year.
Digital Economy Minister Ed Vaizey said: “I congratulate Connecting Cambridgeshire on their excellent progress to date. I’m delighted to hear that 30,000 homes and business in the county have joined more than a million others around the UK who are already benefiting from the Government’s UK rollout.” The visit took place today as the Government announced that more than 1 million UK homes and businesses now have access to superfast broadband as a result of the UK wide rollout. The rate at which superfast technology is being rolled out under the programme is rapidly accelerating. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 UK premises are now gaining access every week and the programme will extend superfast broadband to 95 per cent of the UK by 2017.
After visiting the rural village of Spaldwick, where over a third of residents have upgraded to superfast broadband, the Minister will join celebrations at Willingham with Bill Murphy, managing director of next generation access for BT; Kim Mears, next generation access director for BT’s local network business, Openreach; local councillors and Connecting Cambridgeshire programme partners.
Connecting Cambridgeshire will also announce today an award of £75,000 extra Government funding to help more women start or grow their own businesses by getting online and taking advantage of faster broadband with the support of women’s business networks.
The fibre broadband roll-out has already reached a third of its target to bring faster broadband access to more than 90,000 properties across the county, which would not otherwise be able to get it, by the end of 2015.
Launched last November, the phased roll-out is surging ahead with some areas going live earlier than scheduled and another 50 cabinets due to go live by the end of September 2014 with many more to come as the roll-out gathers pace.
Connecting Cambridgeshire is working with BT and the Government body Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) to roll-out the new broadband network in the most cost effective way to ensure maximum coverage for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
Openreach engineers are working around the clock to extend the network by laying hundreds of miles of fibre cables, upgrading exchanges, connecting new cabinets and overcoming highways challenges, such as crossing the A14.
Connecting Cambridgeshire is also ensuring that businesses can make the most of faster connections and digital technology to boost the local economy.
More than 500 small businesses have already applied for connection vouchers and grants up to £4,000, plus free advice through the programme’s Destination Digital business support project, which runs until March 2015. Further details are available at www.destinationdigital.info
The £75,000 Women and Broadband Challenge Fund award will provide practical help for up to 1500 women to improve their digital skills, grow or set up businesses, and gain support from existing women’s business networks.
The six-month programme will be launched at a women’s business network event in September 2014. Further details and an online resources pack of useful information, events and contacts for women in business across the county will be available at www.destinationdigital.info
The Connecting Cambridgeshire programme is also improving public Wi-Fi and mobile coverage across the county and recently launched a year-long trial of free Wi-Fi in central Cambridge in partnership with the University of Cambridge.
Councillor Mac McGuire, Deputy Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, which is leading the Connecting Cambridgeshire programme, said:
“It is a significant milestone that the Connecting Cambridgeshire superfast roll-out has reached 30,000 premises in just over eight months. The programme is making fantastic progress and we’re already seeing the huge difference that faster connectivity makes to busy households and rural businesses.
“Faster broadband is helping to boost our economy, allowing our businesses to compete and create jobs. It also makes it far easier for residents to access vital services and keep in touch in a digital world.
“We realise there are still a lot of people waiting for better broadband and we want to reassure them that it’s on the way. This is a challenging engineering project, however we are on track to make Cambridgeshire one of the best connected counties in the country by the end of next year.”
Bill Murphy, Managing Director of Next Generation Access for BT, said: Getting fibre to rural areas is difficult, and often complex, work but we are making great progress. Our engineers have been working incredibly hard rolling out fibre broadband to thousands of Cambridgeshire homes and businesses. “Fibre broadband provides fast, strong and reliable connections and will boost the local economy, helping to create and protect local jobs. It will be of enormous benefit to businesses which can use the faster speeds to improve their competitiveness both within the UK and abroad.” The roll-out is being closely supported by more than 120 Broadband Champions across the county, who are keeping their communities informed and helping people to upgrade to fibre broadband when it arrives.
Mark Heath, Broadband Champion for the Cambridgeshire village of Spaldwick, which recently went live, said: “I’ve been helping villagers for many years with their broadband problems, and the arrival of superfast broadband is a fantastic development for the local community. Through extensive awareness building in the village, we’ve seen 40 per cent of households upgrade to superfast broadband in the first month since going live. This is fantastic since the social and economic benefits will only be seen if people and businesses actually take up fibre broadband.”
Residents can find out when they can get faster broadband on the ‘my area’ pages of the Connecting Cambridgeshire website at www.connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk, which also has useful information about upgrading to superfast broadband.
Combined with commercial plans by the private sector, the completed roll-out will give 98 per cent of homes and businesses access to fibre-based broadband by the end of 2015 – making Cambridgeshire one of the best connected counties in the country.
Ends
Notes to Editors
Case studies and quotes from residents and businesses around the county that are already benefiting from superfast broadband are available from Connecting Cambridgeshire.
A list of rural villages, market towns and city areas across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough that have gone live with high speed fibre broadband in the first two phases of the Connecting Cambridgeshire roll-out is available at on the website www.connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk
Contacts Jane Sneesby, Connecting Cambridgeshire Communications, 01223 699969 Mob: 07710 432428 Jane.sneesby@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
Livia Oldland, Destination Digital 01223 706322, livia.oldland@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
The BT Regional Press Office on 0800 085 0660 or Matty Steward, BT’s PR Manager, Next Generation Broadband in the East of England. 01473 609704 Mob 07412 596054 matthew.steward@bt.com
Connecting Cambridgeshire www.connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk The Connecting Cambridgeshire programme is led by Cambridgeshire County Council in partnership with Peterborough City Council, and the Government body BDUK, with the support of District Councils and partners in business, health and education
Under the Connecting Cambridgeshire contract, by the end of 2015, BT’s local network business Openreach will extend the fibre network by upgrading over 100 exchanges, installing around 500 new green cabinets and hundreds of miles of fibre cable.
BT has already made high-speed fibre broadband available to nearly 200,000 Cambridgeshire homes and businesses as part of its commercial deployment.
The network is designed to be open to all broadband service providers on an equivalent basis which means households and businesses will benefit from a highly competitive market, bringing greater choice and affordable prices.
The complex broadband roll-out is being covered in phases to be completed by the end of 2015. Premises in some areas may be covered by more than one phase connecting them at different times and involving different technologies.
Destination Digital www.destinationdigital.info The Destination Digital business support project offers free advice, connectivity vouchers and grants for small and medium businesses (SMEs) including home-based businesses and sole traders to make the most of digital technology.
Destination Digital is being funded with £3.43 million from the Government’s Urban Broadband Fund for Super Connected Cities and a further £1.17million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). For all the latest updates, follow @ConnectingCambs using #DestinationDigital on Twitter, and join in discussions on Linked: http://linkd.in/JHddKp
Women and Broadband The Women and Broadband Challenge fund has been launched by the Government Equalities Office and the Department for Media, Culture and Sport to help women work effectively, access new markets and grow their business online.
Women-led businesses now represent 20% of all small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM, 2009) report regarded the East of England as one of the most entrepreneurial regions in the UK, with a particularly high rate of business start-ups among people aged between 18 to 24 and women. The East of England had the second highest level of female early-stage entrepreneurial activity in 2009 at 4.7%. Male early-stage entrepreneurial activity was third highest at 9.1% The 40 superfast broadband projects in England were invited to bid to a £1 million Women and Broadband Challenge Fund to develop local projects that encourage women to be enterprising. Connecting Cambridgeshire is one of 16 superfast broadband projects to be awarded funding.
About Openreach Openreach is responsible for the last mile of the UK access network – the copper wires and fibre connecting homes and businesses to their local telephone exchanges. Openreach provides communications providers with services and products associated with that network.
About BT BT is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband, TV and internet products and services; and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of five lines of business: BT Global Services, BT Business, BT Consumer, BT Wholesale and Openreach. For the year ended 31 March 2014, BT Group’s reported revenue was £18,287m with reported profit before taxation of £2,312m. British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. For more information, visit www.btplc.com.
About BDUK Superfast Britain is a Government programme of investment in broadband and communication infrastructure across the UK. Run by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, this investment helps businesses to grow, creates jobs and will make Britain more competitive in the global race. The portfolio is comprised of three elements: £780m to extend superfast broadband to 95% of the UK by 2017 £150m to provide high speed broadband to businesses in 22 cities £150m to improve quality and coverage of mobile phone and basic data network services Administered on behalf of Government by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), Superfast Britain is transforming Britain by promoting growth, enabling skills and learning, and improving quality of life. For further information: https://www.gov.uk/broadband-delivery-uk