BT set to work on new South Yorkshire Broadband project

[Rothbiz]

BT has had its tender accepted to work with local authorities on a £20m project that aims to achieve 95% superfast broadband coverage in South Yorkshire by 2017, just as the plug is pulled on the "deeply flawed" Digital Region project.

http://www.rothbiz.co.uk/2014/07/news-42...south.html

[essenby]

The might be very good news for some people. Have the exact locations/roll out been agreed yet and is there anywhere this can be viewed? The BDUK site still has the project as "In Procurement"!

[agentwalker]

begs the question why spend £20 million when they could have took over the digital region network for pennies

[clifft]

(11-07-2014 09:05 PM)agentwalker Wrote:  begs the question why spend £20 million when they could have took over the digital region network for pennies

One reason is that as a going concern, whoever took it over for pennies was buying a shed load of debt. This is all about subsidising BT to put in fibre where it would be otherwise uneconomic for them to do so.

[SpencerUk]

Thanks @Rothbiz

@agentwalker , @clifft

It's the debt, that simple.

Digital Region Ltd has the debt around it's neck so when it dissolves, there's no debt there, 20 mill could indeed start the whole network back up again or even complete the final stages of what Digital Region planned to do.

[ThEGr33k]

Nice, hope it works out well for us!

[SpencerUk]

I don't think we'll see much of this project until after the new year. Government and South Yorkshire will want the farce of Digital Region to die down, plus give it some time before they maybe look into obtaining certain parts of the network.

[Rothbiz]

New broadband project set to miss out Sheffield city centre

The new £20m superfast broadband project being progressed in South Yorkshire could boost the local economy by £271.6m but it is unlikely to cover Sheffield city centre after the contracting body, BDUK, identified that it is not eligible for inclusion in the project under the current rules.

http://www.rothbiz.co.uk/2014/07/news-42...et-to.html

[Zytron]

So if I'm reading it correctly, the "Sheffield city region investment fund" is going to pay up £8m (of the £20m total, so a large chunk of the cash) and it's not going to benefit the Sheffield city region at all?

They're lucky it's not me in charge of that fund, because it would be "Not eligible for BDUK? Then this cash isn't going towards BDUK then"

[Rothbiz]

(14-07-2014 10:53 AM)Zytron Wrote:  So if I'm reading it correctly, the "Sheffield city region investment fund" is going to pay up £8m (of the £20m total, so a large chunk of the cash) and it's not going to benefit the Sheffield city region at all?

They're lucky it's not me in charge of that fund, because it would be "Not eligible for BDUK? Then this cash isn't going towards BDUK then"

The Sheffield city region includes Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster plus Bassetlaw, Bolsover, Chesterfield, Derbyshire Dales and North East Derbyshire.

This project is for areas in South Yorkshire that are unlikely to get FTTC before 2017. That'll include areas of Sheffield, just not the city centre.

I'm not sure why Sheffield city centre is not eligible. By admitting that in a report it makes me think they wanted to include it, which could mean that they don't think it'll get fibre anytime soon. That's just a guess though.

It could also be that BDUK is meant for rural areas and the Government has already set aside cash for "super-connected cities" but unfortunately Sheffield missed the boat on that, probably due to DR...