Rutland Council And BT Agree £3m Superfast Broadband Deal

Rutland County Council has agreed a deal with BT to bring superfast broadband to 90 percent of the county by the end of 2013 as part of a £3 million project.

BT will invest £800,000 into the project, Rutland County Council £2.2 million, of which £710,000 is being provided through the government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funding programme.

Competitive market

BT Openreach will deploy the fibre network, which will allow a number of ISPs to offer competitive packages to 90 percent of the county’s 17,000 homes and businesses. The council said that it is investigating rolling out fibre to a further 7 percent of the county in the same timescale using additional sources of funding and alternative broadband technologies. The aim is to have all areas receiving a minimum of 2Mbps by the end of 2013.

The deal means that England’s most rural county will have some of the fastest broadband speeds in the country, benefiting local business, which will be able to roll out new service applications, run bandwidth-hungry applications and deploy cloud-based systems.

Currently, only a handful of premises can access superfast broadband through BT’s commercial operation through an exchange at Stamford in neighbouring Lincolnshire. The village of Lyddington set up its own provider, Rutland Telecom to add a new cabinet to the BT network.

“BT’s network will be open to all communications providers on an equal wholesale basis and so Rutland consumers and businesses will benefit from a highly competitive market – where people aren’t stuck with one broadband provider and can choose the package and price that suits them,” commented BT’s Bill Murphy.

Rural transformation

The council said that BT was chosen following an “extensive and thorough selection process” and that Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) will be the prevalent technology used, although Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) will be available on an ‘on-demand’ basis for business that want to take advantage of speeds of up to 300Mbps.

In April 2010, community-led Rutland Telecom brought fast broadband to the village of Lyddington, which was not included in BT’s plans for rural broadband. The project raised £37,000 to add its own cabinet to the BT network, providing speeds averaging 25Mbps.

“Rutland is a sparse rural area and getting high-speed affordable fibre broadband to 97 percent of the county will make a huge difference to the long-term prospects of the area and quality of life for all,” said the deputy leader of Rutland County Council, councillor Terry King. “Broadband coverage in Rutland is poor and in some areas very poor, which is why we need a solution like this for the whole county addressing ‘not spots’ and areas the market will not penetrate. This will provide benefits for the wider community such as developing education through e-technology and giving residents access to new models of care and social interaction.”

Last month, BT agreed a £62.5 million deal to being fibre broadband to 97 percent of Lancashire as part of the first allocation of BDUK funding. However this funding is seen as insufficient, with researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) warning of a £1.1 billion funding gap.

Are you fluent in the language of the Internet? Find out with our quiz!