More rural businesses to gain access to CSW broadband

Many more Warwickshire businesses are to benefit from a major extension of a superfast fibre broadband scheme in the county.

More than 43,000 homes and businesses are already able to access faster fibre broadband thanks to the Coventry Solihull and Warwickshire Broadband partnership.

Now a multi-million pound expansion of the Warwickshire County Council-backed programme, which will open up access to fibre broadband to another 14,600 homes and businesses, has begun.

The high-speed technology will become available for the first time in areas of Aston Cantlow, Avon Dassett, Edge Hill, Farnborough, Fenny Compton, Great Alne, Norton Lindsey, Little Kineton, Oxhill, Radway, Ullenhall and Upper Tysoe.

Engineers from Openreach – BT’s local network business – began installing the new network this month. The first premises will be able to access fibre broadband from this summer, reaching 3,600 additional homes and businesses by the end of 2016 and the majority of the remainder by the end of 2017.

During this period, the CSW Broadband programme will also be extended in parts of Alcester, Bidford-on-Avon, Brailes, Claverdon, Furnace End, Harbury, Haseley Knob, Pailton, Rugby, Snitterfield and Southam. At the same time, the technology will be made more widely available in areas of Coleshill, Curdworth and Wellesbourne.

It is around 18 months since CSW Broadband started connecting the first premises in Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry to faster fibre broadband. Since then, Openreach engineers have installed more than 220 new roadside cabinets, making fibre available to almost 50,000 homes and businesses.

Councillor Alan Cockburn, deputy leader of Warwickshire County Council, said: “It’s great news that the first communities to benefit from the additional roll-out of the fibre network can now see where they are in the pipeline. Further announcements regarding the roll-out will be made in April next year, and then quarterly thereafter.”

“The CSW Broadband team has been working on new mapping which now goes right down to property level. This shows the results of the property-level data that has been collected, and we believe CSW Broadband is the first broadband project in the country to have mapping to this level of detail.”

To find out more visit the project website www.cswbroadband.org.uk.

Bill Murphy, BT’s managing director of next generation access, said: “Our project teams are working hard to make fibre broadband available to as many communities as possible, as quickly as possible, especially in the harder-to-reach parts of Warwickshire.

“Every day we’re seeing how this technology is changing the way people communicate and do business for the better. Whether it’s families trying to connect different devices to the internet at the same time, or firms needing to share information with their customers or suppliers.”