At the Cabinet meeting last week a further £10m of funding was
committed by the County Council to extend the reach of super-fast broadband in
the county from the 85% that is currently planned to 95%. This money will be matched by the Government
and the LEP, and work is expected to start when the current contract is
completed at the end of 2015.
Furthermore, we heard about a couple of pilot projects, one
of which is taking place in Aldham, where new technology is being tested to bring
fibre cabling closer to the end user.
The current contract is going well, currently being a couple
of months ahead of schedule. It does not
do to be complacent about this however, since bad winter weather could well
slow progress.
The newly funded 2016 project will initially prioritise
areas that were excluded by British Telecom from the original bid because they
had planned to link these up themselves.
Once the contract was won however these plans were abandoned. Rather annoyingly Newmans Green, where we
live, is one such area. At present we
appear as a blank spot on the map, but now it seems there are prospects of
becoming super-fast in the not too distant future! Other areas that it might be possible to prioritise are places where clusters of remote rural businesses are
struggling to operate.I really hope that this will happen.
The council is now turning its attention to the last 5% of
the county that is too far from the network to benefit from the latest expansion
plans. It is probable that other forms
of technology, based on wireless or satellite, may be necessary to achieve 100%
coverage. Additionally we are looking to
see what can be done to improve wireless signals across Suffolk, a new and
different challenge.
I will report any progress on these two later developments
when it is available.
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