Posted on Monday 20th June 2022
People can find out more about a drive to connect Staffordshire residents and businesses to gigabit technology over the next eight years through a new county council website.
Working with broadband and mobile providers, developers and national government, the county council will be aiming to ensure most properties can access gigabit speeds by 2030.
Project Gigabit aims to reach those premises in the county that are not considered commercially viable. The new Gigafast Staffordshire team (renamed from the Superfast Staffordshire team) will take a leadership role in the county to deliver the programme locally.
The county council will also be working with government on its Shared Rural Network programme to boost 4G mobile connectivity. This could see coverage in Staffordshire increase from its current 78 per cent to 92 per cent.
The new Gigafast Staffordshire website has launched to help everyone understand the benefits of gigabit connectivity at www.gigafaststaffordshire.co.uk
Simon Tagg, Staffordshire’s County Council’s cabinet member for environment, infrastructure and climate change, said:
Getting as many places as possible gigabit-ready means more digital capacity for everyone through greater bandwidth and lightning-fast connectivity. It is predicated that each home will have over 200 internet-reliant devices in just five years, from central heating to toothbrushes, and for businesses, it could mean hugely improved productivity, resilience and flexible working, to name just a few of the immediate benefits.
Under current conditions, only 80% of Staffordshire’s premises would be commercially-viable for the private sector to connect up. Our vision is that no-one is left out, even the hard-to-reach places, so the Gigafast Staffordshire team is about working with partners to create the right demand and market conditions so that everyone can get hooked up.
We have a track-record of pushing the boundaries so that more people feel the benefits of digital technology. By bringing together the most innovative digital minds, we’ll maximise digital opportunities for everyone.’’
As well as improving everyday life, the move to gigabit technology could boost the local by hundreds of millions pounds, and also supports the county council’s climate change commitments – with smart technology reducing energy consumption and cutting carbon emissions.
Since 2013, the county council, in partnership with Openreach and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), has run the Superfast Staffordshire programme. This aimed to connect ‘hard to reach’ communities to superfast broadband speeds (at least 24mbps) where there was no commercial provision. Together with commercial providers across the county it has enabled 97 per cent of Staffordshire properties to have available connectivity, with a take-up of 80 per cent.
The successful take-up of services by residents has resulted in a multi- million-pound return on the original investment, which as well as supporting the Superfast project can now also be reinvested in Gigafast Staffordshire.
The county council launched the Community Fibre Partnership support fund for communities which could not be reached by the main programme which helped nine communities to benefit, with a further 24 communities benefitting from the Gigabit Broadband Top-up Voucher scheme.