Aim
To deliver fibre broadband to homes and businesses across Leicestershire
The Headlines
- Investment: £3.1m
- Project Sponsors: Leicestershire County Council
- Start date: April 2015
- Status: Complete
“I’m delighted that our rollout of superfast broadband is on track to reach 96 per cent of homes and businesses in Leicestershire by the end of the year. I congratulate Superfast Leicestershire on reaching this milestone which has already made superfast broadband speeds a reality for more than 70,000 premises in the county.”
– Margot James, former Minister for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Superfast broadband is an essential core infrastructure that is critical for business growth and innovation. It helps boost gross value added (GVA), improves our region’s competitiveness and increases jobs.
The project has delivered superfast fibre broadband to homes and businesses across Leicestershire that did not have access to it before due to market failure. The project forms part of a national government initiative which commenced in 2011 with the objective to ensure that 95% of UK premises have access to superfast broadband by 2017.
The Local Growth Fund programme delivered fibre broadband access to almost 8,600 homes and business in 2016/17, bringing total delivery on the Superfast Leicestershire programme to over 72,000, including 6,000 businesses.
The programme has primarily utilised Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) technology which involves running fibre optic cables from a telephone exchange or distribution point to a roadside fibre cabinet (DSLAM) which then connects to new or existing copper telephone network delivering much faster speeds over shorter distances.
Project outcomes
- Additional businesses with access to fibre broadband – 3,401
- Additional businesses with access to Superfast Broadband (24 Mbps+) – 1,890
- Expected cumulative coverage of superfast broadband in Leicestershire – 92.5%