Rutland County Council bags BT broadband funding

An East Midlands council has bagged more than 1.5 million in private and public sector funding to support the rollout of fast broadband to its residents.

Rutland County Council has been awarded 710,000 from the Government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) scheme and a further 800,000 from BT.

The council has confirmed that it will also stump up 2.2 million to support the project.

The money will be used by the council to provide at least 90 per cent of the homes and businesses in the area with access to broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps by the end of 2013.

The remaining 10 per cent, whose premises cannot be connected to fixed fibre line networks, will be provided with alternative broadband technologies.

BT's Openreach division will be responsible for deploying the new fibre network, which will be available for all internet service providers to use on a wholesale basis.

Terry King, deputy leader for Rutland County Council, said the project would allow the local community to take advantage of a wider range of technologies, including cloud and e-learning.

"Broadband coverage in Rutland is poor, which is why we need a solution like this for the whole county," said 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."

Bill Murphy, managing director of the Next Generation Access team at BT, added: "BT's network will be open to all communications providers on an equal wholesale basis, so Rutland consumers and businesses will benefit from a highly competitive market."