Member Article

Rothbury is first UK community to use Government's rural broadband fund

Rothbury has become the first town in the UK to use the Government’s rural community broadband fund to equip more than 370 homes and businesses with fibre broadband.

The town’s first fibre broadband cabinet was “switched on” by Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, after the community used the £20 million fund - established by the DEFRA.

More than £400k was secured from the fund to roll-out superfact broadband across the town - with the aim to reach 98% of homes and businesses in the surrounding area by the end of March 2015.

Owen Paterson, Environment Secretary, said: “Every rural area deserves a good internet connection. It has the power to transform business prospects and create more rural jobs.

“Rothbury is the first of many rural areas to receive superfast broadband under the Rural Community Broadband Fund. It will be a massive benefit to everyone who lives in this area, and I look forward to seeing many more of these projects get off the ground. The government is putting in £165 million into unlocking the economic potential of rural areas, and broadband is a key part of that.”

Ed Vaizey, Communications Minister, said: “This is brilliant news for the homes and businesses of Rothbury who will now be able to access superfast broadband speeds. Taking superfast broadband to the more remote areas of the UK understandably presents us with challenges, which is why we created this fund specifically for these locations.”

The roll-out in Rothbury will require around 22 kilometres of fibre optic cable, six new green street cabinets and a mixture of both fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) and fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) technologies.

FTTC, where the fibre runs from the exchange to a local roadside cabinet, gives download speeds of up to 80Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps1. FTTP technology, where the fibre runs all the way to the home or business, offers a current download speed of 330Mbps.

BT is also working closely with local communities to find solutions to bring fibre to more challenging, extremely remote areas.

Bill Murphy, BT’s managing director of next generation access, said: “Rothbury is a great showcase for what is possible when communities and local authorities work together with BT in this way. This and other projects in the county are vital for taking faster broadband to places like Rothbury, that are technically and economically beyond the reach of BT’s and other suppliers’ commercial roll-outs of fibre.

“Northumberland is a largely rural county and we know that small businesses form a key part of the local economy in rural areas. Faster broadband breaks down the barriers to doing business in the digital world, like online trading, which helps to empower small businesses to find new markets, sell new products, try new models and compete on an equal footing with larger businesses at home and around the world.”

From May this year delivery of the broadband project across Northumberland became the responsibility of Arch, Northumberland County Council’s private sector arm’s-length development company

Under the banner of iNorthumberland, Arch will work closely with the council and BT to ensure both the Rothbury project and a separately funded project to extend fibre broadband availability to 95 per cent of the wider county2 are delivered on budget and on time.

Councillor Dave Ledger, chairman of Arch and deputy leader of Northumberland County Council, said: “This is an important step in the campaign to bring faster broadband speeds to every home, business and school inNorthumberland. The community of Rothbury should be proud that they are leading the way in the rural roll-out of fibre broadband and grasp all the benefits and opportunities this new technology can bring.”

For Rothbury residents, fibre broadband at home means everyone in the family can do their own thing online, all at the same time, whether it’s downloading music in minutes, watching catch-up TV or posting photos and videos to social networking sites in seconds. Fibre improves the quality of online experiences and supports exciting new developments in internet services.

The benefits are also considerable for businesses, which can do much more in far less time. Firms can speed up file and data transfers, collaborate with colleagues and customers on conference or video calls or swap their hardware and expensive software licenses for files, processing power and software from cloud computing. Staff can work as effectively from home as they would in the office.

For up to date information on the project and roll-out please visit www.inorthumberland.org.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .