BT Nabs First BDUK Funds to Cover Lancashire in Fibre

BT has agreed a £62.5 million deal to bring fibre to 97 percent of premises in Lancashire by 2014, marking the first allocation of the government’s Broadband Development UK (BDUK) funding.

According to BT, the agreement will see  2,500 jobs created and over 1,200 protected, as Lancashire’s total investment in fibre broadband hits £130 million.

Economic benefit

BT will put £30 million of its own money into the project, whilst £10.8 million will come from BDUK, £16.5 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and £5.2 million from local councils. Lancashire County Council is spending £4.7 million, Blackburn with Darwen Council £300,000, and Blackpool Council £230,000.

LCC has also set up a  £500,000 community fund to help bring connections to the most remote dwellings. ERDF research has indicated the Lancashire economy will benefit from a £100 million economic boost as a result of the fibre deployment.

“This is incredibly important for the success of the Lancashire economy. The project will transform the broadband landscape across the county and ensure that local businesses can become global businesses,” said Edwin Booth, chairman of the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership. “It will ensure that firms remain here and it will also attract a more diverse range of high growth, high value companies to the county.”

The Coalition has pledged £530 million to bring fibre to rural areas with BDUK, as it seeks to make the UK the best connected nation in Europe by 2015. BT has thrown in £2.5 billion of its own money to cover two-thirds of the UK with fibre and last week it announced that the Oxfordshire village of Deddington was going to get fibre, with all copper cables to be replaced.

BT is currently in the process of rolling out its fibre to the premises (FTTP) technology, which will offer speeds of up to 300Mbps. However, the main technology used in Lancashire will be fibre to the cabinet (FTTC), which offers up to 80Mbps downstream speeds. Some will get FTTP, but it was not revealed where or how many would benefit.

Other communications providers will be able to jump on top of BT’s infrastructure to offer services. Virgin, which is part of a consortium led by Fujitsu that is applying for BDUK funding, said it had nothing to say specifically about the Lancashire project, but was looking into various options for selling services to rural communities.

“On a general basis we’re exploring all options for network expansion including our own expansion (e.g. in-fill, working with housing projects on new build), expansion into new areas (recently we expanded coverage in Slough, Ashford, Staines, Southampton, Leicester, Bolton) and of course opportunities that might still arise from things like Fujitsu,” a spokesperson told TechWeekEurope.

Competition

Lancashire County Council told TechWeekEurope BT was up against 13 organisations initially, but after a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) process, just three returned: BT, Fujitsu and a consortium consisting of telecoms consultancy firm Commendium, Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems and Gridline Holdings, which provides broadband over power line (BPL) technology.

A spokesperson said BT was “far and away the stronger candidate”. As for questions around whether the councils received any complaints from smaller providers over favouring major vendors, the spokesperson said “it was an open tendering process”.

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