Around 667,000 rural homes and businesses across England are set to be connected to “lightning-fast” full fibre broadband, the government has said.
Six new contracts worth more than £450 million have been announced today (February 6) as part of Project Gigabit – which has secured around £1.1 billion in contracts to connect homes and businesses in hard-to-reach places.
The government said suppliers will immediately begin detailed surveying work to connect around 236,000 premises across England, with the first premises expected to be connected in early 2025.
Five of these latest contracts will be delivered by broadband provider CityFibre, serving rural communities in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Sussex, Kent, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes.
A further contract to upgrade premises in Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire has been awarded to Hull-based supplier Connexin.
Full fibre is capable of delivering speeds of up to 1,000 megabits (or one gigabit) per second – up to 30 times faster than superfast connections which rely on traditional copper cables.
The upgrades aim to help grow the economy, create jobs and deliver long-term change by making it easier to set up a business, and giving rural communities access to networks designed to meet people’s needs as the demand for fast connections continue to rise, the government said.
Data and digital infrastructure minister Julia Lopez said: “We’re wasting no time in our mission to bring lightning-fast broadband to rural areas – with a billion pounds in contracts already signed with broadband companies to get our next-generation network up and running.
“Project Gigabit is already driving growth, creating jobs and putting an end to snail’s pace internet speeds, and we will continue to work rapidly to ensure people feel the benefits of our rollout to even more places across the UK as quickly as possible.”
Chief executive at CityFibre, Greg Mesch, said: “We’re thrilled to be a key delivery partner for the government on this critical infrastructure project, transforming the digital capabilities of rural homes and businesses across the country. But that’s just the start.
“We’re continuing to expand our commercial rollout alongside Project Gigabit, extending infrastructure choice, multi-gigabit speeds, and unparalleled reliability to hundreds of thousands of additional premises in these regions.”
