Thousands of homes and businesses in 10 South Cambridgeshire villages can now connect to gigabit-speed broadband after East-Anglian based County Broadband confirmed construction of a multi-million pound broadband network has completed.
The community provider has committed to rollout full-fibre broadband to half a million premises across the East of England by 2027 after securing a combined £146m private investment from Aviva Investors to deliver world-class digital connectivity and FTTP infrastructure in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Essex.
County Broadband is in the process of connecting individual premises in the 10 villages to its full-fibre network which delivers 11x faster speeds and greater reliability compared to the existing ‘Superfast’ copper-cased infrastructure which the government has said is no longer fit for purpose.
The live villages are Meldreth, Shepreth, Great Eversden, Haslingfield, Little Eversden, Whaddon, Barrington, Harston, Orwell, and Kingston. They join Fowlmere, Newton, and Thriplow which were connected by the provider earlier in the year, bringing the total number to 13.
County Broadband specialises in connecting rural areas which have typically been overlooked by other providers. In total, they are delivering full-fibre broadband to over 60 villages across South Cambridgeshire with the majority expected to be built by the end of the year.
James Salmon, Director of Sales and New Territories at County Broadband, said: “We are excited to welcome 10 more villages to our growing full-fibre network in South Cambridgeshire as we continue our mission to deliver future-proof broadband across the region. We’ve already started connecting homes and businesses to gigabit-speeds and many more customers will be going live over the coming weeks.
“We’ve seen a surge in demand for faster broadband throughout the pandemic from workers in their virtual office at home, families streaming content across multiple platforms and businesses growing online. Our daily habits and reliance on connectivity has fundamentally shifted and we need the infrastructure in place to support these changes. The speeds delivered by the existing copper-based networks were just about enough in the past but they are no longer fit for purpose for today’s needs, let alone the years ahead.
“Cambridgeshire is a thriving county but it will need world class digital connectivity to boost economic growth and attract investment. The reality is building new broadband networks is a complex process which cannot be done overnight. That’s why we need to act now.”
Full-fibre broadband uses fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) infrastructure where fibre optic cables are installed directly into the premises, providing download and uploads speeds of 1,000 Mbps. The existing infrastructure relies on fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) delivery on which ‘Superfast’ is based.
Residents and businesses can check if they are covered in County Broadband’s rollout by entering their postcode in our postcode checker.
