A PARTNERSHIP between local residents and BT is to make high-speed fibre broadband available to around 100 homes on the Kingswood Park estate in Frodsham.
Openreach, the local network business which is part of BT Group, will install new fibre optic cabling and a new green road-side cabinet equipped with the latest Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology as part of BT’s Community Fibre Partnerships scheme.
Speeds of up to 80Mbps will be available for the first time to the Kingswood Park community from a wide range of broadband service providers.
The partnership is benefitting from funding through the Government’s Better Broadband Subsidy Scheme and will see local residents get the high-speed service by Spring next year.
The Better Broadband Subsidy Scheme allows households and businesses with internet speeds of less than 2Mbps, who are not included in any current programme to rollout high-speed fibre broadband, to get funding for better broadband using any technology.
The Kingswood Park residents were awarded £350 per eligible household for a new fibre broadband network.
The cost of bringing fibre broadband technology to residents in the community has been covered by the Government scheme and Openreach’s investment.
Dr Peter Simpson, who led the local community group to campaign for faster broadband, said: “BT approached us pro-actively to help find a way to upgrade our slow broadband and I’m very pleased that we have been able to work together to come up with a solution to vastly improve on our current poor broadband speeds.
“Not only do we have families living on the development who need high-speed fibre broadband to watch internet TV, shop online and do homework, but we also have people working from home needing it to enable them to do their jobs efficiently.
“The arrival of high-speed broadband will make a big difference to all our lives.”
Kieran Charleson, BT’s regional director for the North West, said: “We have been working closely with the people of Kingswood Park to agree this funding solution to bring superfast fibre to the local community and it’s great news that the contract has now been signed and the service will be up and running by Spring 2018.
“We’re keen to have conversations with other communities who might be able to benefit from this approach.”
Kim Mears, Openreach’s managing director for infrastructure delivery, said: “Partnerships like this help us to bring high-speed connections to challenging areas that broadband providers struggle to upgrade alone.
“More than 92% of the UK can access superfast speeds today, and we’re committed to making fibre broadband as widely available as possible in the UK. That’s why we’re investing in hundreds of similar projects across the UK, working in partnership with business and residential communities to deliver faster speeds from a wide choice of competing internet service providers.
“It’s great to be able to work with communities like Kingswood Park in Frodsham to find a broadband solution.”
For more information on community fibre partnerships with BT, visit www.communityfibre.bt.com
