Hundreds of thousands of rural homes and businesses across the UK, including Gwent, struggling with outdated broadband infrastructure are set for improvements as the UK government is set to ‘power up’ regions and fix the digital divide.
It is to invest up to £800 million to modernised the broadband infrastructure in rural areas in a bid to help residents and businesses to enjoy streaming, video calling and downloading large files without the problems of buffering.
Around 312,000 homes and businesses, including those in the South Wales Valleys, are set to benefit.
This landmark deal with telecoms provider Openreach is part of Project Gigabit, which targets areas too expensive for providers providers to reach and would otherwise be stuck with poor digital infrastructure.
Secretary of state for science, innovation and technology Peter Kyle said: “Over the past decade, the UK’s broadband rollout has clearly not happened fast enough and has overlooked too many areas, especially in Scotland and Wales.
“Today marks a significant milestone in delivering on our promise to achieve full gigabit coverage by 2030.”
Benefits include students haing better access to online resources and remote learning platforms and healthcare patients being able to make further use of remote consultations.
Contracts worth £288 million have been signed under the agreement, aiming to connect approximately 96,600 homes and businesses initially.
Wales, including the south east of the country, will be among the first regions to benefit from the rollout.
Minister for digital infrastructure Chris Bryant said: ““Far too many rural citizens and businesses are still stuck with outdated internet infrastructure, not being able to fulfil day-to-day tasks as easily as people living in our towns and cities.
“This monumental deal with Openreach will make a real difference to communities – such as staying in touch with loved ones or being able to do business no matter where you are.”
Further, Project Gigabit will support the government’s plans to kickstart economic growth.
For households, gigabit-capable broadband delivers faster speeds and fewer dropouts, solving the problem of battling for bandwidth with neighbours and ensuring seamless surfing, streaming, and downloading at the same time.
Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said: “This is a British infrastructure success story. Our network already reaches more than 15 million urban and rural premises and, wherever we build, we bring the widest choice of providers for customers. I’m confident we can reach as many as 30 million homes by the end of the decade if the conditions remain supportive.”
