Thousands of Leicestershire homes and businesses to benefit from broadband upgrade
Project Gigabit is set to help 38,000 hard-to-reach homes and businesses in Leicestershire and Warwickshire.
Lightning-fast broadband will be delivered to tens of thousands of Leicestershire and Warwickshire homes and businesses after a £71 million contract was signed today (6 February 2024) under the government’s national Project Gigabit rollout.
Independent broadband provider CityFibre will deliver top-of-the-range full fibre connections to around 38,000 rural premises in the counties which otherwise would have missed out on the industry’s rollout of faster, more reliable ‘gigabit-capable’ broadband.
Full fibre is capable of delivering speeds of up to 1,000 megabits (or one gigabit) per second – up to 30 times faster than superfast connections which rely on traditional copper cables. Gigabit speeds mean households can download a high-definition film in under one minute, stream and download entertainment and shop online across several different devices at once.
The upgrades will help grow the economy and create jobs by making it easier to set up and grow a business, and mean rural Leicestershire communities will have access to networks designed to meet people’s needs for decades to come as the demand for fast connections continues to rise.
Rural communities across the county will benefit, including those in or surrounding Bosworth, Charnwood, Harborough, Loughborough, North Leicestershire, Melton, and South Leicestershire.
Now the contract is signed, CityFibre will begin detailed surveying work with spades expected to enter the ground from the summer.
As a result of this investment, CityFibre has committed to offer 40 apprenticeships – a minimum of eight per year – across the UK in telecoms and highways maintenance for the duration of the contract, giving young people the chance to develop vital new skills and build a rewarding career.
The rollout of Project Gigabit is overseen by Building Digital UK (BDUK) – an executive agency of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
Councillor Pam Posnett , Leicestershire County Council’s Lead Member for Digital, said:
“It’s great news that more Leicestershire homes and businesses will now be able to access increased speed and reliable broadband through Project Gigabit.
Faster broadband will improve the day-to-day lives of our communities and businesses, particularly in rural and hard-to-reach areas of the county, enabling access to a variety of services such as banking, education and health, as well as improving connectivity and productivity for business operations.”
Keep up to date with progress in Leicestershire at www.digital-leicestershire.org.uk/broadband/project-gigabit/