Member Article

8 new broadband areas for the North East

BT’s has announced 8 new exchange areas in the region which are to be included in its £2.5 billion super-fast fibre broadband programme.

The announcement is set to benefit more than 119,000 homes and businesses in Wallsend, Ashington, Blyth, South Shields, Consett, Peterlee, Stanley and Boldon. This means that more than 500,000 homes in the region will have access to the new network.

The latest upgrades are due to be completed during 2012, and will see broadband speeds rise from 100 Mbps to 300Mbps in the spring. This will be a massive help to thousands of home workers and remote offices by slashing overheads and improving employees work-life balance.

Chris Sayers, BT regional director for the North East, said: “This latest major investment is a tremendous boost for the North East and will be welcomed by families throughout the area because it will help improve their quality of life and leisure and open new doors through online learning and fast access to information and services.

“And it’s also going to provide a huge fillip for businesses and the North East economy. At a stroke, small and medium sized firms will have access to big business speeds at much lower costs allowing them to find new markets, boost their competitiveness and create new jobs.”

It will also be beneficial to rural areas across the region,and BT are investing heavily in new technologies to improve speeds where fibre broadband won’t be available.

More than 6 million homes and businesses currently have access to high speed broadband, and BT recently announced that two thirds of UK premises will have access by the end of 2014, a year earlier than planned.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .