Superfast broadband rollout now one of the fastest in the world

13 Nov 2014 02:58 PM

Government’s rollout of superfast broadband has passed more than 1.5 million premises and is reaching 40,000 additional homes and businesses every week.

The UK government’s ambitious rollout of superfast broadband is gathering pace and its implementation is among the fastest in the world, giving growing numbers of premises access to a fast and reliable internet connection. The rollout has been steadily accelerating since it began in 2012 and has now entered the fastest stage of deployment, with many of the 44 projects across the UK that comprise the scheme ahead of schedule.

26% of all UK connections are now superfast, up from just 6% 2 years ago. Every day more and more people are opting to make the most of all a superfast connection has to offer – be it entire households using multiple devices at the same time with no drop in quality of service, the ability to work from home, staying in touch with friends and relatives using video calls or uploading digital content to websites.

Culture Secretary Sajid Javid said:

I’m delighted that the project has now reached more than 1.5 million homes and businesses, giving people much faster and reliable connections. We know how important superfast broadband is to everyone, which is exactly why we are investing £1.7 billion in this remarkable project. Our transformation of the UK’s digital landscape is progressing at an incredible rate and delivering a tremendous boost to the nation’s economy as part of the government’s long term economic plan.

Digital Economy Minister Ed Vaizey discusses the success of government’s broadband rollout.

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• The project has already made superfast broadband available to more than 1.5 million UK homes and businesses
• To date, project partner BT has rolled out more than 25,000 km of fibre-optic cabling, about 25 times the distance from Land’s End to John O’Groats
• Around 8,500 street cabinets are now up and serving customers in hundreds of rural towns and villages throughout the UK who were previously stuck with slow speeds and unreliable connections
• Together with commercial rollouts, we have seen average broadband speed in the UK almost quadruple since 2010 (from 5.2Mbps in May 2010 to 18.7Mbps in May 2014)

The rollout is firmly on track to take superfast broadband coverage to 95% of the UK by 2017. It currently stands at around 80%, up from 45% in 2009 and the UK is already ahead of the top 5 European economies for broadband coverage, speed, choice and price.

Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss said:

Rural Britain is being wired up and fired up as we push superfast broadband into the countryside at an electrifying pace. Connecting rural communities is enabling rural businesses to reach their full potential – creating jobs, boosting exports and supercharging our economy.

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