The UK Government wants the UK to have the best broadband in Europe, with ‘superfast broadband’ (which it defines as providing download speeds in excess of 24 Mbps) available to 90% of UK premises by the end of 2015, and to 95% of UK premises by 2017. A complex combination of commercial deployment of fibre broadband (by BT) and cable broadband (by Virgin Media) and public subsidy by the UK Government and local authorities will ensure that the availability of superfast broadband will increase substantially in the next few years. This will help many broadband users who are currently suffering from low broadband speeds.
Fibre broadband defined
Fibre optic broadband (often shortened to ‘fibre broadband’) is the future of broadband. Two forms of fibre broadband are being rolled out by BT: Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) and Fibre to the Premises (FTTP). Click on the following link for a full explanation of fibre broadband:
Why do you need superfast broadband?
Superfast broadband provides substantial benefits for both consumers and businesses. Click on the following link for an assessment of the benefits of superfast broadband:
Why do you need superfast broadband?
Without Government intervention, BT fibre broadband would have reached two-thirds of premises by 2014
BT invested £2.5bn to roll out fibre broadband infrastructure to two-thirds of UK premises by spring 2014. Now public money is being used to substantially increase fibre broadband availability.
The UK Government wants Britain to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe. Initially, a £530 million fund was established by the UK Government to incentivise the roll-out of superfast broadband into areas that the private sector would not reach under standard market conditions. This fund has been managed by a team within Department for Culture, Media and Sport known as Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK).
Various programmes are being led across the UK by local authorities, many of which have made excellent progress in terms of finding additional funding and agreeing roll-out contracts with BT.
Keep checking the status for your area!
Our advice is to keeping checking on the status of superfast broadband in your area. You can use the postcode checker provided by BT Openreach to find out about progress in your area: