Government rollout of superfast broadband reaches nearly 2.5 million homes and businesses

Government rollout of superfast broadband reaches nearly 2.5 million homes and businesses

The Government released its latest report on the progress made by the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme. Thanks to this, superfast broadband is now available to over 2.4 million premises in the UK (an increase of 500 000 more premises since December 2014). This, according to the report, equates to nearly 8000 premises covered per £million of BDUK expenditure. 

The BDUK programme is a publicly funded project designed to complement private sector investment in the deployment of superfast broadband (24Mbit/s) to UK premises. A combination of private and public sector investment made superfast broadband available to around 80% of all UK premises so far. The Government is confident to reach its target of 95% coverage by the end of 2017.

Options to roll-out superfast broadband to the last 5% of UK premises are currently being investigated. Earlier this year, the Government published its initial findings from the feasibility phase of market test pilots to deploy superfast broadband to the hardest-to-reach areas. Findings from the trials will be published later this year.

Whilst the Government’s plans to deploy superfast broadband are still progressing, the Digital Communications Infrastructure Strategy published alongside the Government Budget 2015 in March, set a new ambition for the UK: ultrafast broadband of at least 100Mbps to nearly all UK premises. The Conservatives manifesto reiterated this ambition although details and timelines are not yet available…