More counties named in UK government's superfast broadband plans

THE UK GOVERNMENT is moving on with plans to hook bumpkin Britain up to so-called 'superfast' broadband but British Telecom's (BT) fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) trials have hit a snag.

The government specified that it wants to hook up Devon, Somerset, Norfolk and Wiltshire next as it plans to roll out superfast broadband in rural areas. Each county will get a slice of the £530m the government had left over from a botched digital switchover policy but it's still not enough cash and the government will have to sniff around for private equity investments.

"This is part of our plan for virtually every community in the UK to have access to super-fast broadband," culture secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC.

Eighteen counties initially bid to be connected to superfast broadband but only four were selected. Devon and Somerset are getting £30m each while Norfolk will receive £15m and Wiltshire will get £4m.

The government has already pledged to hook up 90 per cent of the nation by 2015 and telecom firms like BT are pushing hard to install the infrastructure in rural areas. BT has been running various rural schemes as it is pumping £132m into meet the government's deadline.

Following on to such a scheme in Cornwall, BT announced today that Cornish telephone exchanges will have superfast broadband by Autumn 2012. The telecom promised that about 50 of the 100 exchanges in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly will get upgraded next year.

BT might be making the right moves to meet the government's pledge but the company's FTTP trials haven't been running so well because of blocked ducts stalling engineers.

We contacted BT and a company spokesperson told us that the trials are a work in progress and they had expected to hit blockages during installation. "FTTP is a complex technology which we are currently trialling at scale," said BT's spokesperson.

"We are pleased with how the trials are going, but have always been very clear that we will only launch it on a commercial basis once it has been fully tested and is ready for the market." µ