Government to spend £530 million on fibre optic broadband rollouts
The Government will spend £530 million on building fibre based, super-fast broadband infrastructure in rural parts of the UK, it has been confirmed.
According to the Spending Review released yesterday, the government’s investment on rural broadband projects will be around £230 million while the BBC will offer £300m from its License fee to fund the schemes.
The £530 million project is expected to provide UK homes and businesses in areas which are not considered economically viable by the UK Internet Service Providers with access to faster broadband services via fibre optic cables by 2015.
Initially, the next generation broadband schemes will be launched in North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Herefordshire and the Highlands to benefit more than 2 million homes and businesses, it has been revealed.
The Chancellor George Osborne said, “It will help encourage the growth of our creative industries as a key part of the new economy we are seeking to build.”
UK’s largest fixed line broadband provider BT would invest around £2.5 billion on deploying fibre across the UK which is expected to bring high-speed broadband to more than two thirds of UK population (66%) by 2015.
The ISP has recently launched a nation-wide survey and a competition that will see five winning exchanges in rural areas with the highest demand to be upgraded to faster broadband service.
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