More than 5,000 public buildings, including schools, hospitals and libraries, have been connected to high-speed broadband as part of the Government’s Project Gigabit scheme.
Project Gigabit is a £5 billion programme to connect hard-to-reach communities unlikely to be connected through commercial rollout.
The upgrades are funded by a £164 million government investment, and according to a statement from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) are designed to improve productivity of public services while also encouraging broadband companies to extend the network to thousands of surrounding homes and businesses.
This follows a call from the Government for bids from broadband companies to connect approximately 190,000 hard-to-reach premises in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cornwall.
Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said, “Fast and reliable broadband is vital to households, businesses and the public services we rely on every day. That’s why, on top of our transformative £5 billion Project Gigabit investment to improve rural connectivity, we have upgraded thousands of schools, libraries and hospitals across the UK to first class broadband fit for the future.”
Initiatives to connect public buildings come under the Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme, launched five years ago to subsidise the cost of full fibre broadband connections in publicly-owned buildings.
