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[Bowdon]

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/08/gov-says-uk-superfast-broadband-project-delivers-9bn-biz-boost.html

The Government have today estimated that their £1.6bn+ Broadband Delivery UK project, which with the help of operators like BT (Openreach) and Gigaclear has extended fixed “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) ISP networks to cover 95%+ of UK premises, also delivered a £9bn boost to national business turnover.

Firstly, it’s important to clarify that the commercial market had already done most of the leg work for this. Overall commercial operators, including big names like Virgin Media, Openreach and lots of smaller players, have managed to extend the coverage of superfast broadband connectivity to around 76% of UK homes and businesses.

By comparison the BDUK scheme has largely focused its state aid supported gap funding model upon the final 24% of premises, which are usually rural or sub-urban areas that commercial operators have found to be unviable (i.e. market failure – too expensive to reach without public investment to help co-fund the roll-out).

Overall the BDUK investment (c.£700m from the government and c.£900m+ from other local bodies) has thus resulted in superfast broadband networks being deployed to reach almost 5 million extra UK premises. The programme is on-going and could even cover around 98% of premises by the end of 2020, while the planned 10Mbps+ USO is expected to handle that final 1-2%.

    Margot James MP, UK Minister for Digital, said:

    “Our rollout of superfast broadband across the UK has been the most challenging infrastructure project in a generation but is one of our greatest successes. We are reaching thousands more homes and businesses every week, that can now reap the clear and tangible benefits that superfast broadband provides. We are helping to ensure the downfall of the digital divide.”

    Clive Selley, Openreach CEO, said:

    “It is great to see businesses across the UK reaping the benefits of faster broadband speeds and I’m proud of the leading role that Openreach has played in helping to deliver the Government’s rollout of superfast broadband – one of Britain’s great engineering achievements. We’ve also recently introduced a raft of lower wholesale prices to help drive higher take-up of faster fibre services which will help to further fuel the boost to the UK economy.”