It’s been a busy week for broadband rollouts in England this week, although there’s been very little activity in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Here’s Broadband Rollout Roundup for the week ending August 17, 2012.
BT’s superfast fibre roulette finds more lucky villages
BT Openreach’s seemingly random rollout of superfast broadband connections has landed on villages across England and Wales this week.
Local exchanges and many of their cabinets have been given a fibre-optic connection, ready for residents and businesses to sign up for FTTC broadband at up to 80Mbps.
In Hampshire, 30,000 premises in the villages of Horndean, Fordingbridge, Moorhill and Hythe have been connected, helping take the number of premises in Hampshire with access to fibre broadband to more than 550,000 by the end of 2013.
BT Openreach also tweeted some small superfast connections going live for:
- Tiptree, Essex
- Swanley, Kent
- Sunderland North, Northumbria
- North Petherwin, Cornwall
- Mold, Flintshire, North Wales
- Elland, West Yorkshire
- Askern, South Yorkshire
Essex villages join the County Broadband set
Tendring, Great Bromley and Thorrington in Essex have gone live with County Broadband’s wireless internet service – and basic services are free.
Villagers will be able to get up to to 32Mbps broadband via a small antenna on their homes, which connects to a wireless relay on the village church spire.
County Broadband has also set up fledgling community pages for each parish, which can be turned into public resource for anyone connecting to the network.
Residential packages start from free for 500kpbs each way with a 500MB/month allowance, plus £99 installation. The top package is 32Mpbs each way with 100GB usage at £34.99/month.
Fibre to the peninsula grows for Superfast Cornwall
West Country high speed broadband delivery organisation Superfast Cornwall was proud to announce two more locations on its fibre-to-the-cabinet map this week.
FTTC is now available to phone lines in Bra Shop, connected to the Stoke Climsland exchange, and to parts of Church Coombe & Carnkie, near Redruth.
South Yorkshire’s broadband rises
The state-funded fibre rollout of Digital Region in South Yorkshire continues this week with more fibre-optic connections going live in Sheffield, Barnsley and Doncaster.
The FTTC service offers speeds of up-to-37Mbps, with 13Mbps upstream, and faster speeds becoming available later this year.
In Sheffield, the following postcodes are now served: S2 2SP, S2 5HD, S36 4GX. In Barnsley, FTTC is in S63 9DX, and in Doncaster the latest connections are in DN6 8DL.