All speed ahead! (From Basingstoke Gazette)

All speed ahead!

4:00pm Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Local By Helen Morton

FASTER broadband is on its way for more borough residents after millions of pounds of Government funding was secured for a local broadband plan.

Hampshire County Council recently had its local broadband plan accepted by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) and has secured £5million of the £8.4m set aside by the Government for the region, including Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight. The £5m of Government funding is to be matched by local public and private finance.

Hampshire County Council leader Councillor Ken Thornber said: “This news marks the start of the Hampshire broadband programme, ‘Faster broad-band, getting Hampshire connected’, and the first question everyone will ask is when are they going to get an improved service.

“We've been waiting for this green light and are ready to go, but we recognise that this is a major project and results will not be seen overnight.

“Our immediate next steps are to secure a commercial partner to support and develop detailed implementation plans for the county. We can then publish a timetable for the planned roll-out.”

The BDUK funding is part of Government plans to ensure everyone in the country will have access to broadband.

The funding will bring enhanced speeds of at least 24 Mbs (Megabits per second) to at least 90 per cent of homes and businesses in the UK and provide universal access to standard broadband with a speed of at least 2Mbs.

Today around 50,000 households and nearly 7,000 Hampshire businesses are in broadband 'not spots', with very slow broadband speeds of 2 Mbs or less. Everyone currently below the minimum levels should see improvements over time.

Cllr Thornber said: “In Hampshire, it is estimated that only 80 per cent of the county will be able to access faster broadband speeds by 2013 through the commercial market, and further investment is needed to reach more people.

“Our role is to improve speeds for those people living in the predominantly rural areas that the commercial market currently doesn't reach.

“The public sector gap funding is designed to stimulate investment and finance the shortfall where there are too few potential customers to cover the costs of the upgrade to the network infrastructure.”

The contract for the commercial partner is expec-ted to be awarded in December 2012. The broadband project will be phased, and is estimated to start in January 2013 with a three-year implementation programme due to be completed by the end of 2015.

Hampshire County Council is now collecting evidence of demand for improved broadband from within communities.

Individuals and businesses are being urged to register their interest at hants.gov.uk/broadband-signup.