Regional Innovative Broadband Support contract award

Following a tender process, I am pleased to announce that the BT Group has been selected to provide the infrastructure for the remaining exchange areas in Wales currently unable to receive broadband services - a major step in bringing broadband to all. A contract was signed with them on 3rd March 2006 to undertake this work.

As part of my Broadband Wales Programme, the Regional Innovative Broadband Support (RIBS) project, which is part-financed by the European Union Objective One Programme, is designed specifically to enable those areas of Wales described as broadband blackspots that have lacked access to broadband services. This is welcome news for approximately 10,000 households and businesses who, once work is completed, will receive access to a minimum first-generation (512kbps to 2mbps) broadband service at prices comparable with urban areas of Wales.

When I launched the Broadband Wales Programme in July 2002, broadband was available to only around 30% of the Welsh population. Today approximately 99% of the Welsh population can currently gain access to broadband technology, a fact that supports the recent growth in broadband uptake in Wales to 32%, almost double the previous year. These figures reflect the huge appetite for broadband in Wales, and I am looking forward to seeing more growth as these final unviable exchange areas are enabled. This work will push us across the line to meeting my vision of developing a competitive and sustainable broadband infrastructure across Wales by March 2007.

With Wales clearly leading the way in broadband access, we are setting the scene for continued growth as an innovative, knowledge economy that is not only attracting inward investment from some of the UK’s and Europe’s best businesses, but is ensuring a sustainable future for our population.

Work to equip the remaining BT exchange areas with broadband will commence immediately, including selected infrastructure improvements with the majority of exchanges enabled by late Summer 2006.

Once enabled, the contract will bring these exchange areas into BT's National broadband network so they can be upgraded to newer technologies, which will effectively level the playing field with all other exchange areas in the country. Following a recent BT announcement, the upgraded exchanges will benefit from up to 8mb bringing them in line with all other exchanges across Wales.

The broadband rollout will be implemented in a two-staged approach. Stage one will concentrate on enabling the final exchange areas. Once this work is completed, there will still be a small proportion of the population who live inside enabled exchange areas but still cannot access broadband.

As a result, stage two of the rollout will then focus on identifying these remaining blackspots and exploring ways of bringing broadband to these residents. These people should register their details on the Broadband Brokerage website at www.bbwo.org.uk or www.abec.org.uk. This impartial market information will pin-point their communities for future rollout.