'Terrific progress' by Black Country Broadband Project as it reaches 55,000 households and businesses
Around 55,000 households and businesses are now able to access superfast broadband thanks to the Black Country Broadband Project.
The technology has recently become available in parts of Aldridge, Bilston, Blackheath, Brierley Hill, Dudley town centre, Halesowen, Horseley Fields, James Bridge, Kingswinford, Leamore, Lye, Penn, Sedgley, Smethwick, Stone Cross, Tipton, Walsall, Wednesbury, West Bromwich, Willenhall and Wolverhampton.
The multi-million pound Black Country Broadband Project is led by the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and BT Group and is part of the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme.
Ninder Johal, Board Member for the Black Country LEP, said: “The Black Country Broadband Project is making terrific progress, but we’re keen for more local people to take advantage and upgrade their broadband service, which they can do at little or no extra cost, to ensure they don’t get left behind in a world where so many things rely on us having access to fast, reliable broadband.”
So far, engineers from Openreach – the business responsible for Britain’s largest phone and broadband network - have installed nearly 290 kilometres of optical fibre and more than 520 fibre broadband road-side cabinets for the Black Country Broadband Project.
Steve Haines, Openreach’s Managing Director of Next Generation Access, said: “The Black Country Broadband Project builds on Openreach’s own commercial roll-out of high-speed fibre broadband across the West Midlands. As part of our ongoing commitment to the region, we have also chosen Brierley Hill as one of our new pilot areas for ‘ultrafast’ broadband – providing access to download speeds of up to 330 megabits per second – which we aim to make available to around 12 million UK premises by 2020.”
Ninder Johal added: “This is more great news for the Black Country and I urge local businesses and residents to seize the many benefits that these exciting technologies bring.”
Because the Black Country Broadband Project is being rolled out by Openreach, residents and businesses opting for an upgrade can choose from a wide range of broadband service providers.
The Black Country Broadband Project was launched to bring fibre broadband to areas of the region that are not already able to access faster fibre broadband as a result of any commercial roll-outs of fibre broadband by the private sector .
For more information on the Black Country Broadband Project visit: www.blackcountrylep.co.uk/place/broadband-plan
Note to Editors
The £18.4 million Black Country Broadband Project is a partnership between Black Country LEP, BT and the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme, supported by the four local authorities in Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.
Combined investments by BT and other communications providers means high-speed fibre broadband is already available to around 92 per cent of the area – more than 468,000 homes and businesses.
The Black Country Broadband Project will extend the availability of superfast fibre broadband to 99.43 per cent of homes and businesses across Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton by the end of 2017.
Funding for the programme is made up of £2.98 million from the Government’s Broadband Delivery (BDUK) programme, £12.4 million from BT and £2.98 million from the Black Country LEP’s Growing Places Fund.
The Growing Places Fund enables organisations to apply for funding to invest in capital projects, including land, property and infrastructure, which unlock economic growth and create jobs.
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Issued by Black Country LEP and the Openreach regional press office
For more information please contact Helen Annetts, PR on behalf of the Black Country LEP on 07779026720 or email HelenLAnnetts@hotmail.co.uk
Or
Emma Tennant at Openreach on 0800 085 0660 or email: emma.tennant@bt.com Twitter: @EmmaTennantBT All Openreach news releases are available at our web site.
About the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)
- The Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) aligns activity across private and public sectors to create the right environment for businesses with a remit to tackle barriers to business growth and create a globally competitive local economy.
- Programmes to deliver our vision are structured around three areas of activity:
- Business: supporting skills and competitiveness
- People: raising skills and employability, for example through our City Deal and Skills Factory;
- Place: including the provision of more high quality employment land through our Enterprise Zone and City Deal.
- The LEP Board has identified seven priority areas where action will have the most impact on the Black Country and its contribution to the national economy:
- Exploiting the potential of the Black Country as a place to live, do business and invest; focusing on our housing offer, the quality of employment land, and the distinctive role of our four strategic centres.
- Using supply chains to build business commitment to skills and growth
- Supporting innovation at our major science and business parks
- Building a close relationship with our top 600 companies
- Raising our skills levels
- Securing inward investment
- Developing a more entrepreneurial culture
- The Black Country located at the heart of the national transport network, comprises the metropolitan boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall and the City of Wolverhampton. It covers 356 sq kilometres, is home to 1.17 million people, with 23 per cent ethnic minority residents and approximately half a million jobs in 35,000 companies.
For more information on the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership visit www.blackcountrylep.co.uk or follow on Twitter: @blackcountrylep
About Openreach
Openreach is Britain’s digital network business. That means we connect homes, mobile phone masts, schools, shops, banks, hospitals, libraries, broadcasters, governments and businesses – large and small – to the world. It’s our mission to build the best possible network with the highest quality service, and make sure that everyone in Britain can be connected.
Our 30,400 people work on behalf of more than 580 communications providers like Sky, Talk Talk, Vodafone, Plusnet, EE and BT. Our fibre broadband network is the biggest in the UK, covering more than 26.8 million premises. And our technology is the basis of Britain’s thriving digital economy, which is the largest in the G20 as a proportion of GDP.
We’re working hard to give people the broadband speeds they need at work and at home. Over the last decade, we’ve invested more than £11bn into our network. And we now manage more than 158 million kilometres of cable stretching from Scotland to Cornwall, and from Wales to the east coast. But we’re not stopping there – we’re making superfast broadband speeds available to thousands more homes and businesses every week.
We’re an independently governed business within the BT Group. Our business is highly regulated, and more than 90 per cent of our revenue comes from services that are regulated by Ofcom. Any company can access our products under the same prices, terms and conditions.
In the year ending 31 March 2017, we reported revenues of £5.1bn.
To find out more about us and what we do, go toopenreach.co.uk.
About BT
BT’s purpose is to use the power of communications to make a better world. It is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in 180 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband, TV and internet products and services; and converged fixed-mobile products and services. BT consists of six customer-facing lines of business: Consumer, EE, Business and Public Sector, Global Services, Wholesale and Ventures, and Openreach.
For the year ended 31 March 2017, BT Group’s reported revenue was £24,062m with reported profit before taxation of £2,354m.
British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.
For more information, visit www.btplc.com
About us
Openreach is Britain’s digital network business. That means we connect homes, mobile phone masts, schools, shops, banks, hospitals, libraries, broadcasters, governments and businesses – large and small – to the world. It’s our mission to build the best possible network with the highest quality service, and make sure that everyone in Britain can be connected.
Our 30,400 people work on behalf of more than 580 communications providers like Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and BT. Our fibre broadband network is the biggest in the UK, covering more than 26.8 million premises. And our technology is the basis of Britain’s thriving digital economy, which is the largest of the G20 countries.
We’re working hard to give people the broadband speeds they need at work and at home. Over the last decade, we’ve invested more than £11bn into our network. And we now manage more than 158 million kilometres of cable stretching from Scotland to Cornwall, and from Wales to the east coast. But we’re not stopping there – we’re making superfast broadband speeds available to thousands more homes and businesses every week.
We’re owned by BT Group and independently governed. Our business is highly regulated, and more than 90 per cent of our revenue comes from services that are regulated by Ofcom. Any company can access our products under the same prices, terms and conditions.
In the year ending 31 March 2017, we reported revenues of £5.1bn.
To find out more about us and what we do, go to openreach.co.uk.
