Rory hails Penrith as first Cumbrian market town gets super-fast Broadband
Rory Stewart has welcomed the 9th May news from BT that more than 7,800 residents and firms in Penrith are poised to join the high-speed broadband revolution as engineers complete the local upgrades in the coming weeks. Further major investment is also under way in other parts of Cumbria, with BT announcing plans for its super-fast fibre network to pass nearly 65,600 more premises in Barrow-in-Furness, Carlisle, Dalton, Kendal and Workington in the coming months.
Rory, who is MP for Penrith, said: “The arrival of super-fast broadband in Penrith marks a major milestone for Cumbria. It helps put Cumbria at the cutting edge. Superfast broadband technology is vital if our communities are to thrive and grow, especially during these economically challenging times. And we must now put the infrastructure to work to bring the benefits to businesses, to schools, and all our services. But Penrith is just the beginning for Cumbria. I am now pushing hard to ensure that the more remote parts of our county will also benefit from super-fast broadband in the near future.”
Mike Blackburn, BT’s North West regional director, said: “The arrival of super-fast broadband in Penrith is a huge boost for local businesses and households, and can transform their experience of the internet. They’re joining the more than seven million UK premises now passed by one of the world’s fastest growing fibre networks. Fast and reliable internet connections are an essential part of our national infrastructure, whether we want them for boosting our businesses, delivering essential public services , education online or entertainment at home. Nobody is doing more than BT to roll-out faster broadband across the region and we want to go further.”
The communications company’s local network business, Openreach, expects to make super-fast fibre broadband available to around two-thirds of UK homes and businesses by the end of 2014. It will use a mix of fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) and fibre to the premises (FTTP) technologies. Both offer speeds much faster than those currently available to many UK homes and businesses. FTTC, where fibre is delivered to the street cabinet, offers download speeds of up to 40Mbps and upload speeds of up to 10Mbps. Openreach recently announced it will roughly double these speeds this Spring. FTTP, where fibre runs all the way to homes and businesses, currently offers download speeds of up to 100Mbps and these too, are expected to be soon boosted to up to 300Mbps this Spring. By Spring 2013 BT aims to make speeds of up to 300Mbps commercially available in any area where super-fast fibre broadband has been deployed, potentially transforming the competitiveness of businesses.
