Thursday 27 February 2014

@WAR - Broadband Update

 

Bringing faster broadband to our rural areas

Special Announcement February 2014

Please forward this email to your contacts –
we need to spread the word!

 
If you would like a Word version of this newsletter please email broadband@warwickshire.gov.uk
 
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Additional funding announced for CSW Broadband

 
The Government has announced that additional funding of £3.68m will be made available to take the coverage of superfast broadband to 95% of premises across Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire. The funding is conditional on being matched. The current £15.47m CSW Broadband contract with BT will achieve superfast coverage to 91% of premises and this funding will enable the project to procure a solution to achieve  a further 4% to coverage, which is 95% overall.
 
In the current economic climate it is not easy to see where the required match funding will come from, but the CSW Broadband team have made applications through the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership for a total of £7.85m from the EU, and we are actively seeking other sources of funding for this important project. We have always said that the current project us just a stepping stone towards the EU target of 100% coverage at 30Mbps. This funding will help to take our superfast coverage even further.
 
An expression of Interest must be submitted to government by 20th March and the formal request for funding must be submitted by 30th June. This is a big ask given that we are currently working on the rollout of the BT contract. Work will now start on preparing for an Open Market Review and public consultation prior to commencing a procurement exercise to find a partner to extend the wholesale superfast network.
 

Questions and Answers

 

What will the additional money buy?

We will be procuring a partner to take the network to 95% superfast coverage.


Where will you go?

We are a long way from being able to answer that yet. As with the first contract we will have to go through a procurement exercise and the results of that, and the subsequent investigative works, will determine where we go.


What about the final 5%?

We are still actively investigating any and all sources of funding to reach the EU 2020 targets of 100% coverage at a minimum of 30Mbps – which is higher than the current superfast speed of 24Mbps!! The Government has already said that it will launch a £10m fund on 17th March for pilot projects to test new ways of delivering high speed broadband. We will work with suitable local companies in developing applications to this fund and, if successful, in trialling the new technologies in our area.
 
 
For the BT broadband availability checker visit: http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.TelephoneNumberOutput
 

Frequently asked general broadband questions can be found on our website at:

 
 

Questions about the contract or rollout can be found at:

 
 
Send this email on to all your contacts! We need to reach as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Please send this email to your contacts and encourage them to send it further. It’s probably best to remove the contact details above our logo at the top of the email otherwise it could get to be a very long string before the email itself appears!
 

CSW Broadband now on social media – come and join the conversation

We are now on the major social media channels and are already creating a buzz. Join in for up-to-date information and an opportunity to influence how the project develops
 
 
If you do not wish to receive these updates in future please respond to broadband@warwickshire.gov.uk stating “UNSUBSCRIBE” in the subject
 

CSW Broadband is a partnership between Warwickshire County Council, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, Coventry City Council, BT and Department for Culture Media & Sport. Logos have been removed to reduce file size for emailing.

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