Super-fast broadband to be rolled out to Bromborough and Eastham

Apr 13 2011 by Alan Weston, Bromborough and Bebington News

A FURTHER 71,000 homes and businesses in Merseyside – including Bromborough and Eastham – will have access to super-fast broadband by the end of next year.

Telecoms giant BT has announced the latest areas to benefit from its UK-wide £2.5bn roll-out plans for super-fast fibre broadband.

They are: Bromborough (more than 7,000), Eastham (nearly 5,000), Ainsdale (more than 6,000 homes and businesses), Lark Lane (more than 9,000), Prescot (more than 12,000), and Walton (more than 9,000).

Super-fast broadband allows users to send and receive large amounts of data more quickly and efficiently, and to run multiple bandwidth-hungry applications at the same time.

Super-fast broadband, using “fibre to street cabinet” technology, offers much faster download speeds of up to 40Mbps, potentially rising to 60Mbps, and upstream speeds of 10Mbps, which could rise to 15Mbps in the future.

BT, through its local network business arm Openreach, expects to make super-fast fibre broadband available to two-thirds of the UK by the end of 2015.

Mike Blackburn, BT’s North West regional director, said: “The roll-out of super-fast broadband across Merseyside and the North West is continuing to gather momentum. More than 450,000 homes and businesses in the region now have access to the benefits of this exciting technology and we expect to pass 1.2 million next year.

“At a time of difficult economic conditions super-fast broadband is being rolled-out in the UK at a faster pace than anywhere else in the world. BT is making one of the largest private sector investments in the North West in recent times and this is boosting the prosperity of the region as well as transforming the internet for businesses and households.

“We want to make super-fast broadband available as widely as possible, but beyond our current commercial roll-out plans there are locations where we will need to work with the public sector to install the technology. We welcome the opportunity to talk to organisations such as local authorities about ensuring their communities are able to benefit as fully as possible.”