Superfast Broadband coming

Just as groups were getting together to campaign for Superfast Broadband locally comes some really good news, courtesy of Will Harris, writing for the Crewe Chronicle's website. He says:

"Villagers in Audlem will soon benefit from superfast broadband after BT revealed the latest phase of its roll-out programme.

"Audlem homes are among around 24,800 across North Staffordshire and South Cheshire to be included in the next generation broadband service over copper lines.

"Businesses and homes should have access to it by summer 2012.

"The BT investment makes available broadband speeds of up to 20 megabits per second (mbps) – more than double the maximum speeds previously available to the majority of UK homes and businesses.

"This investment is in addition to the £2.5bn BT roll-out of super-fast fibre-based broadband, which is expected to bring even faster speeds to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.

"Regional director John Dovey said: “BT’s roll-out of faster broadband across the region is running at a very rapid pace.

“We have already announced plans to make super-fast fibre-based broadband available to more than a million homes and businesses in the West Midlands by the end of next year. Now we are able to confirm a further major investment in faster broadband speeds over copper lines.

“Nobody is doing more than BT to roll-out faster broadband across the region. At a time of economic uncertainty these major improvements will provide a big boost for local businesses and offer many additional educational and entertainment opportunities for local households.

“And we want to go further. We want to work with the public sector to find ways of bringing faster broadband to areas, which are geographically and commercially more challenging.”

Audlem Online adds: Our survey this time last year showed that broadband speeds were both slow and getting slower over a three-month period. The results were sent to the UK's Digital Champion. We don't know if this helped get Audlem on the early list of communities to receive Superfast Broadband but there will be many readers today raising a glass to celebrate this news.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.