Rutland County Council signs £3m fibre broadband deal with BT

At least 90 per cent of rural council to gain access to fibre by 2013

Rutland County Council has signed a £3m deal with BT to make fibre broadband available to homes and businesses in the area by the end of 2013.

According to BT, at least 90 per cent of the county will have access to fibre broadband under the government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme.

The council has also said it is intending to roll out fibre to a further seven per cent of the area using additional sources of funding.

BT Openreach will deploy a FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) network that it said will enable ISPs to offer speeds of up to 80Mbit/s to over 15,000 of the county's homes and businesses, and will also offer speeds of up to 300Mbit/s using FTTH (fibre to the home) for local businesses that want access to faster speeds.

The telecoms giant will contribute £800,000 to the project, with Rutland Council contributing £2.2m including £710,000 from BDUK.

The current £2.5m commercial broadband rollout from BT only covers a few premises in Rutland and this new project is aimed at covering the majority of other buildings.

"Broadband coverage in Rutland is poor and in some areas very poor, which is why we need a solution like this for the whole county addressing ‘not spots' and areas the market will not penetrate," said deputy leader for Rutland County Council, Terry King.

"This will provide benefits for the wider community such as developing education through e-technology and giving residents access to new models of care and social interaction," he added.