Written Statement: Update on fibre broadband

The final Lot under the successor project to Superfast Cymru for east Wales has been awarded to BT PLC. Under this Lot initially around 10,000 extra premises will be provided with access to fast reliable broadband.  The deployment will be underpinned by over £9.2 million of public funding and will be completed by March 2021.

As my predecessor outlined in her oral statement in October last year the procurement for Lots one, north Wales, and three, south west and the Valleys were also awarded to BT PLC.  These two Lots will initially provide access to fast broadband to nearly 16,000 premises across both Lots by March 2021 utilising just over £13.m million of public funding. 

My announcement today means that in total 26,000 premises will be provided with access to fast reliable broadband by March 2021 at a cost of nearly £22.5 million to the public purse. This funding will be met from contributions from the Welsh Government and EU funding. This is in addition to the 733,000 premises which have already been provided with access through Superfast Cymru with over £200million of public funding. None of these premises would have access to faster broadband without the Welsh Government’s intervention as the market had no plans to provide access to superfast broadband under their own commercial deployments. The procurement for the successor project is now complete.

Given the scale and complexity in providing fast reliable broadband to those premises currently unable to access it a range of interventions are needed, there is no one size fits all solution. These interventions will be complementary and reflect local demand for services. 

There are three elements to our approach; individual support through our ABC and ultrafast connectivity voucher schemes; support for communities through our vouchers schemes and community led interventions; and publicly funded roll-outs through the successor project to Superfast Cymru.

I will continue to keep members updated.