BT Signs £14m East Riding Superfast Broadband Deal

Telecoms giant BT has signed a £14 million deal to bring superfast broadband to East Riding of Yorkshire.

The project will see 42,734 premises in the area covered by fibre providing speeds of 24Mbps and above by December 2015, whilst the remainder of the area will get at least 2Mbps. Only last week BT won a contract to bring superfast broadband to West Yorkshire.

Superfast broadband spreading

BT is putting £4 million of its own money into Broadband East Riding, with the rest of the money coming from the local authorities involved, central government’s Broadband Development UK (BDUK) pot and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

As with the majority of other BDUK rollouts to rural areas in need of superfast broadband, most connections will be over fibre-to-the-cabinet, which is somewhat slower than fibre-to-the-home. The latter will be available in certain parts of East Riding.

“This £14m investment in the East Riding will transform broadband speeds for thousands of homes and businesses in the area. This will be instrumental in driving growth, boosting the local economy and achieving the Government’s objective of reaching 95 per cent of all UK premises by 2017,” said communications minister Ed Vaizey.

John Skidmore, interim director of corporate strategy and commissioning at East Riding of Yorkshire Council, added: “Having access to the internet is an important aspect of modern life with many of us using it on a daily basis whether that is personally, such as keeping in contact with family and friends through social networks, or commercially and with more and more businesses requiring a secure, reliable and faster connection in order to compete and trade.”

Everything appears to be moving on smoothly with the BDUK project, even though MPs have lambasted the project for delays and the fact that BT is set to win every contract under the framework.

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