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Government’s superfast broadband rollout reaches 1.5 million homes and businesses

The Government has announced that its superfast broadband rollout scheme has now reached 1.5 million premises since it began in 2012.

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 26% of all UK connections are now superfast, up from just 6% 2 years ago.

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

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.

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.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .