Homepage » News Archive » View News Item 5448

Devon and Somerset likely to announce BT as winner in October
Monday 17 September 2012 16:24:14 by Andrew Ferguson

In a newsletter update to those who have registered on the Connecting Devon and Somerset website there are a few nuggets of information. Crucially that BT has been the only supplier to respond to the tender process, and if the wording is correct the suggestion is that Fujitsu not bidding is 'in line with its decision not to respond to any publicly-funded bidding opportunities nationally'.

The Devon and Somerset project has a goal of 25 Mbps or faster for 85% of the area by 2015, and progressing to a 100% target for 2020. The amount of public funds available to meet this stands at £53m currently (£32m from BDUK), and the key now will be how much money can be extracted from BT to invest in the project and improving the ratio of partial fibre (FTTC) to full fibre (FTTP)

Of course there is no point running these projects and building something that no-one apart from a few thousand geeks sign up to, and this has the local authority contracting two suppliers to engage with businesses and the local community. Once the roll-out starts in 2013, residents and businesses should expect to see community events to help people understand the benefits of the project and also help improve digital skills.

[ Topic: Broadband | 5 comments | link to this item ]

Comments

Posted by Somerset 9 months ago
D&S link wrong.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) 9 months ago
Link is now working a lot better, was an errant space

Posted by michael-scott 9 months ago
With regard to the future hoped-for in Devon improvements to broadband speed I completely lack in confidence as regards BT as I live between two towns,Dawlish and Teignmouth,and doubt whether FIBRE will be offered at all,either to the home or to the cabinet!
BT has a monopoly that it milks...!!!!

Posted by carverdoone43 9 months ago
The rural areas in both counties will not get any improved broadband speed at all because of cost, it took decades to even get mains electricity to these places so broadband has no chance this century even longer if left to BT.

Posted by chris6273 9 months ago
As someone who lives in a rural village in Somerset, I really hope that if BT are announced as the winner that they pitch in with a bit of their own money and spend it wisely IN RURAL AREAS!

Nearby towns; Taunton and Bridgwater have recently been FTTC'd.

I definitely think it would be a good idea to go down the FTTP route and possibly have residents helping to dig their own trenches if need be because if providers have been turning a blind eye to rural areas for this long already, it is going to be a very long time before anything else is done in the future.