Superfast North Yorkshire shows Julian Smith, MP, new fibre network in ripon

Around 2,800 local homes and businesses in the city can now benefit, local people encouraged to get connected 

Superfast North Yorkshire today demonstrated the technology behind the roll out of super-fast fibre broadband to Julian Smith, MP for Skipton and Ripon. 

The MP visited the Ripon marketplace to find out for himself how the technology works and why it’s essential for the future success and prosperity of people living and working in Ripon. 

He urged local people to reap the benefits of this major investment in high-speed fibre broadband which is now available to around 2,800 homes and businesses in Ripon. Around half the city will be enabled by mid-summer with further upgrades scheduled to start later this year. 

Superfast North Yorkshire, a partnership led by North Yorkshire County Council and BT, builds on BT’s own commercial roll-out of fibre broadband in the county so that 90 per cent of North Yorkshire’s homes and businesses will have access to fibre broadband by the end of 2014 1 . 

Superfast North Yorkshire has already enabled access to fibre broadband to more than 20,000 homes and businesses across the county. 

Julian Smith said: “Having campaigned to improve access to broadband across my constituency for many years, I am delighted to hear that fibre broadband has arrived in Ripon. Many of my constituents can now access broadband with speeds of over 25Mbps. This is a vast improvement on the previous speeds and will make a significant impact upon the lives of those living in the area and the opportunities for businesses who operate in the City.” 

Research carried out for BT by Regeneris Consulting suggests that in the next 15 years super-fast broadband could give the economy of a typical town a £143 million boost and create 225 new jobs, 140 new start-up businesses and 1,000 more homeworkers 2 . 

Councillor Carl Les, chairman of Superfast North Yorkshire, said: “We’re very pleased that Julian Smith, who is a great champion of broadband, has been able to come and explore the inner workings of our roll-out of fibre broadband today. Local people may have noticed new BT green street cabinets being installed. This everyday street furniture is where the magic happens. It may not look like much from the outside but inside it is packed with the latest fibre-optic technology – helping to put North Yorkshire on the high-broadband map 

“Fibre broadband opens up a whole new world to internet users as more than 160,000 households and businesses across North Yorkshire can now discover.” 

The majority of premises in North Yorkshire will be getting access to some of the best broadband speeds in the country via Superfast North Yorkshire and BT’s associated commercial roll-out. The high speed service will boost the competitiveness of local firms and offer new ways of flexible working, entertainment and learning opportunities for local residents. Fibre broadband gives users the ability to run multiple bandwidth-hungry applications at the same time such as sending and receiving large amounts of data much more quickly and efficiently. At home, fibre broadband enables a family to simultaneously download a movie, watch a TV replay service, surf the internet and play games online all at the same time. A whole album can be downloaded in less than 30 seconds and a feature length HD movie in less than 10 minutes, whilst high-resolution photos can be uploaded to Facebook in seconds. 

Chris Farrington, a sales consultant for Colour It In printers in Harrogate, said: “I live in Sharow and my connection has jumped from 4Mbps to 38Mbps.This has enabled me to work from home part of the week as the connection is now reliable meaning I can access our online systems without the frustration of slow speeds. I no longer have to travel to my office in Harrogate to carry out internet based tasks. This has already reduced costs significantly and enabled me to improve my work, life balance.” 

BT was chosen as the private sector partner in the project following an extensive selection process by the county council. The company is contributing £10 million towards fibre deployment in “non-commercial” areas whilst the county council is using its £17.8 million share of BDUK funds and a further £8.6 million coming from the European Regional Development Fund 3 . 

To help businesses in North Yorkshire take advantage of the faster broadband speeds a support service has been put in place to provide free services such as training workshops, skills master classes and business development events. This will demonstrate how faster broadband connections can help to develop business and increase profits by maximising efficiency and productivity. For more information call 0845 0020021 or email: enquiries@sfny.co.uk. 

For further information on the Superfast North Yorkshire programme visit www.superfastnorthyorkshire.com

Notes to Editors:

1 The majority of North Yorkshire homes & businesses will have access to speeds of at least 25Mbps by the end of 2014. Openreach, BT’s local network business, is primarily deploying fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology, where the fibre runs from the exchange to a local roadside cabinet. FTTC offers download speeds of up to 80 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps and could deliver even faster speeds in the future. 
ISPs may use different speeds in their advertising. Individual line speeds will depend on network infrastructure and the service chosen by the ISP 

2 Research taken from Social Study 2012 – The Economic Impact of BT across the UK by Regeneris Consulting – see www.btsocialstudy.co.uk for more information. 

3 The Superfast North Yorkshire project is part financed by the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme, which is one of the funds established by the European Commission to help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support local businesses and create jobs. For more information visit www.communities.gov.uk/erdf

About Superfast North Yorkshire 
Superfast North Yorkshire was created in July 2012 following the signing of the contract between North Yorkshire County Council and BT, which will see a total fibre broadband investment in the county expected to reach around £70 million. 
North Yorkshire is the first county in the UK successfully to deploy Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds, which will be used to extend the roll-out of faster broadband across the county. The project will reach those areas outside of any commercial roll-out using a partnership approach to ensure all communities have access to the fastest possible broadband speeds. 
The Superfast North Yorkshire project is part financed by the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme, which is one of the funds established by the European Commission to help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support local businesses and create jobs. For more information visit www.communities.gov.uk/erdf