BT announced today that Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are set to become one of the best connected locations in the world under an ambitious £132 million BT and Cornwall Council project, supported by European funding. It will bring superfast broadband to the vast majority of businesses in this area by 2014. The project will benefit tens of thousands of local businesses, create 4,000 new local jobs and protect a further 2,000.
It is expected that other ISPs will be able to offer services using the infrastructure in the same way that they buy off BT Wholesale today. Operational details of this have yet to be announced. Rollout will be announced on a rolling basis, agreed by the project partners in consultation with internet service providers.
Today’s announcement focuses on business customers – the aim of the EU funding is to drive economic prosperity and the primary goal is to deliver high speed broadband to all local businesses by 2014. However higher speed broadband will be available to homes within the footprint too.
The project will see a range of different broadband technologies deployed. Fibre broadband will be the most prevalent and will give between 80 and 90 per cent of local businesses and homes access to super-fast speeds. The expectation is that approximately half of local businesses and homes will also be able to enjoy fibre to the premise technology.
Businesses and homes outside the fibre footprint will also receive faster speeds than today through a mix of alternative technologies such as advanced copper, wireless and satellite broadband. These technologies are more suitable to deploy than fibre broadband in the remotest and hardest to reach locations.
The roll-out in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly will begin immediately and run until 2014 with the first customers being connected early next year. It will be interesting to see how this affects property pricing and inward investment in Cornwall.
11 replies on “Superfast Broadband Coming to Cornwall and Scilly Isles”
“alternative technologies such as advanced copper,” – that means BET. A scandal waiting to happen, and a total disgrace.
If BT do this then I hope we make sure they don’t get away with it.
Public money should not be wasted propping up their copper cabal for ONE minute longer than it has to be. The RDA and the councils have been suckered. It would have been far better if government had created a level playing field, (VOA tax) and then people who really care about next generation access would have been able to tender for this contract. Vtesse springs immediately to mind. Or Rutland, they are doing it already for small communities, their own cabinets from which they can run fibre to the home or copper if that is what people want. At least they won’t try to run any bonded copper scams. The funding was for rural areas, and knowing BT it will be spent in the more urban ones.
chris
Why didn’t Vtesse tender? If their scheme works elsewhere why not in Cornwall?
vtesse tried to tender, but couldn’t compete with the addition of the VOA tax on their prices. BT don’t have to worry about fibre tax. The playing field is not level. That is why Rutland are sticking to FTTC for now, otherwise they would roll out fibre too. A lot of the smaller players would, but the incumbent has it stitched up.
I think that Tref’s closing point about property prices and inward investment is hugely important. I have been wondering since #RBC10 about whether property values might be the “killer ap” that we have been looking for to stimulate investment (private and public).
Surely it cannot be long before the 2connected generation” start making housing buying decisions – and they will want proper connectivity. There must be a valuation impact sooner or later.
We need to monitor this and some proof – I will think about where it might come from. V important for Cumbria also of course.
I endorse all of Cyberdoyle’s points here.They were ones I had intended to make myself but the day job got in the way. FTTP is the only real answer. I can envisage alternative technologies being deployed as an interim but we have to recognise that the life span of an interim solution would not be long. The pressure for faster and faster speeds will continue relentlessly.
Rob
I will do some investigation to see whether we can set up something that monitors the relationship between availability of fibre / fast broadband and house prices in Cornwall over the next couple of years. Should be interesting.
Tref
There is already plenty of evidence from elsewhere about the impact of FTTH on house prices. FTTH Council have some from EU, USA has TONS of evidence especially from community networks.
In addition, Utopia (Utah Network) raised initial investment from the local community by putting a ‘lean’ on their properties over 20 years. Home owners leapt at the opportunity.
How many people would buy a property where broadband (below a certain speed?) was not available? 85%?
Elsewhere (Computer Weekly) it says Vtesse were unhappy about the exchange – cabinet fibre access and pricing, not VOA.
Would Vtesse have a wholesale solution so Sky bundles etc. work?
I did mean ‘not buy a property’…
[…] be seen as good news. Considering though that the recently announced project in Cornwall cost £132m this suggests that these four areas could well consume the whole […]