More rural Devon and Somerset homes get connected
More rural Devon and Somerset homes get connected
England’s biggest regional roll-out programme for connecting rural areas to superfast broadband has added businesses and homes in a further two villages to the network ahead of its own schedule.
The Connecting Somerset and Devon scheme has reached Sticklepath in Devon and Bradford on Tone in Somerset three months before it was expected to. The first premises in the two villages can now access high speed broadband and once the programme is complete, a total of 700 business and domestic users will be connected in Sticklepath and around 500 in Bradford on Tone will be able to access the improved service.
Connecting Devon and Somerset has already made fibre broadband connections available to an estimated 211,000 premises in Devon and 196,000 premises in Somerset in partnership with the BT national roll-out. It aims to bring the villages of Moretonhampstead, Holsworthy, Bishops Lydeard, Creech St Michael and Monkton Heathfield up to speed by the end of this year.
The roll-out will benefit home and business users, allowing people to work from home or rural offices more effectively. The faster fibre broadband service makes cloud computing services easier to access, along with technology such as a video conferencing. The domestic service will allow people to use the internet, play online games, download a film and watch a TV replay service such as the BBC’s iPlayer, all at the same time.
Connecting Devon and Somerset covers six local authority areas in the two counties, which have invested £21
million into the project. The Government has provided £32 million and BT £42 million to finance the network roll-out. It aims to deliver broadband and superfast broadband services to more than nine out of 10 homes and businesses in the two counties by the end of 2016. Its target is to achieve 100 per cent coverage by 2020.
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