West Yorkshire has been revealed as one of just six places chosen to test out the fastest and most reliable broadband.
Fibre broadband is to be rolled out to businesses, schools and hospitals in a £200m pilot scheme.
The projects will get around £10 million to test full fibre networks that run straight to the doors of customers’ homes or businesses and is said to offer speeds of 1 gigabyte.
Karen Rukin of Kirklees Council said: “This is great news and a small project team is being established who will work with government to deliver this scheme locally.
“There is still work to do to shape how the scheme will operate exactly in West Yorkshire.”
Kirklees councillor Andrew Cooper, (Greens, Newsome), said: “It’s good that more communities are getting a better broadband service. As local councillors we will be dropping letters informing the householders affected to make sure they don’t lose out.”
Full fibre broadband could potentially allow:
* hospitals to share HD quality graphics of medical scans in seconds to improve diagnosis speeds,
* businesses to reach ever more customers online, increasing transactions by uploading even the largest files quickly and easily
* school classrooms to see a vast increase the number of pupils who can stream educational videos at the same time
The scheme is also being tested in Aberdeenshire, West Sussex, Warwickshire, Somerset and Greater Manchester.
Minister of State for Digital, Matt Hancock MP, said: “We want to see more commercial investment in the gold standard connectivity that full fibre provides and these innovative pilots will help create the right environment for this to happen.
“To keep Britain as the digital world leader that it is we need to have the right infrastructure in place to allow us to keep up with the rapid advances in technology now and in the future.
The announcement is the first step as part of the government’s four-year plan to stimulate the market and encourage the growth of full fibre up and down the country.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Andrew Jones MP, said: “How we live and work today is directly affected by how good our broadband connection is. Reliable connections enable new industries to flourish, help create jobs and give people flexibility in how and where they work.”
Source: http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/super-fast-fibre-broadband-coming-13609095