Croxton: First Village Connected In Superfast Broadband Project

5 July 2013, 06:50

Superfast broadband's getting switched on this morning in the first village in the country to benefit from a £41 million government project.

The high speed connection in Croxton near Thetford goes live later.

It's part of Norfolk County Council's plan to get 80% of Norfolk connected by 2015.

The Better Broadband for Norfolk programme was launched by Norfolk County Council in order to bring better broadband provision to the large parts of Norfolk that currently suffer from slow or no broadband access. In 2011 the council promised £15 million for the project and that was matched by Government.

BT is already contributing £11 million towards the cost of installing the fibre optic cables, bringing the total capital investment in the project to £41 million.

The deal between BT and the County Council means that over 80 per cent of Norfolk’s homes and businesses are expected to be able to access high-speed fibre broadband services (24 megabits per second and above) by the end of 2015, with the intention of providing all homes and businesses with access to a minimum broadband speed of 2Mbps too.

Homes and businesses in Croxton, near Thetford, will not only be the first in Norfolk to benefit from being connected to high-speed fibre broadband through the Better Broadband programme but are also set to become the first in the UK to be upgraded under the scheme.