Faster broadband available to another Shropshire community

More than 1,700 more Shropshire homes and businesses now benefiting from roll-out programme 

Faster broadband is now available to more than 1,700 more homes and businesses in Shropshire, BT announced today. 

Cleobury Mortimer is the latest community in the county to benefit from upgrades as part of the roll-out of BT’s next generation broadband service delivered over copper lines. 

The BT investment will make available download speeds of up to 20 megabits per second (Mbps) – more than double the fastest speed previously available from BT. 

The new service is now accessible to more than 136,300 county premises and is available on an open, wholesale basis to all companies providing broadband*. 

John Dovey, BT’s regional director for the West Midlands, said: “Increasingly, broadband is an essential part of everyday life, whether you’re Christmas shopping online, 
sharing photographs and videos with the family, working in an office or as a homeworker, improving your education or just wanting to download a film or programme online. 

“It has the power to transform every aspect of our lives and is a vital part of ensuring the future prosperity of communities across Shropshire and the wider West Midlands 
region.” 

This investment in the copper network is in addition to BT’s £2.5 billion roll-out of fibre-based broadband which will bring even faster speeds to around two-thirds of UK premises during Spring 2014. 
BT is keen to work with the public sector to extend fibre broadband to the remaining parts of the country that are harder to reach. 

Note to Editors 

*Once an exchange area has been upgraded for next generation broadband, some service providers automatically upgrade their customers to the enhanced broadband service. People should contact their chosen service provider for more information about the products and services they offer.