The Welsh Government has extended its project to make fibre to premises superfast broadband available around the country.
It has reached an agreement with Openreach, the division of BT Group installing the infrastructure, to target local authority areas with less than 90% coverage with the aim of providing connectivity to 39,000 premises compared with the previous target of 26,000 under the Superfast Cymru programme.
Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport Lee Waters (pictured) said this would help to strike a better balance across the country, with the aim of completing the project by June 2022.
“All of the properties will be able to access a future proofed fibre to the premises solution enabling gigabit broadband speeds to be achieved,” he said.
The extension to the project will be funded by £30 million from the Welsh Government and EU, bringing the total to £56 million, with additional investment from Openreach.
Waters added: “This update demonstrates our continued commitment to intervene in a non-devolved area to improve connectivity across Wales and to innovate to support our public services.”
He also said the Public Sector Broadband Aggregation network has supported the response to Covid-19 in Wales by providing high speed connectivity quickly to tis Red Dragon hospitals.
Image from National Assembly of Wales, CC BY 2.0
