Digital & IT

PM visits Dorset as "thrilled" Wessex Internet awarded first contract in £5bn Project Gigabit

Prime Minister Boris Johnson sees for himself the work of Wessex Internet with Nadine Dorries, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Picture: Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street.

By Staff Reporter [email protected]

Published: August 31, 2022 | Updated: 1st September 2022

Wessex Internet found itself in the national spotlight after the Prime Minister visited Dorset to mark the company being awarded the first contract in the £5 billion Project Gigabit.

At the start of his last full week as PM, Boris Johnson saw for himself the plans and preparations for connecting more than 7,000 hard-to-reach homes and businesses in the county to lightning-fast broadband.

The Blandford-based Internet Service Provider – named ‘Best Rural Fibre Provider’ and ‘Rollout Challenge Buster’ at this year’s inaugural UK Fibre Awards – has been awarded a £6 million contract by the government.

The first home will be connected by the end of the year, with an expected completion date for all by 2025.

It covers the rural outskirts of towns, villages and hamlets in Dorset from Sherborne to Verwood and Shaftesbury to Blandford Forum.

Project Gigabit aims to bring the fastest, most reliable broadband to areas considered too difficult or expensive to connect under the broadband industry’s commercial plans.

Government funding will complement industry investment to ensure that harder-to-reach areas benefit from the same gigabit broadband as the rest of the country.

The Dorset contract marks the start of a flurry of Project Gigabit delivery contracts to be awarded over the coming months.

As part of the programme, the government has already launched procurements totalling over £690 million aiming to cover up to 498,000 premises.

Work is due to begin to connect hard-to-reach areas in Cornwall, Cambridgeshire, Cumbria, and several areas across north east England before the end of the year.

The Prime Minister, who was accompanied on his visit to Dorset by Nadine Dorries, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said: “From Sherborne to Stirling, lightning-fast broadband is levelling up towns and villages across the country.

“In just three years we have increased the coverage of gigabit broadband from seven per cent of households to 70 per cent.

“I am proud that today more than 20 million households, businesses and organisations are able to tap into rapid and reliable internet, unleashing their potential, creating opportunities and driving growth across the country.”

Nadine Dorries said: “We enter an exciting new phase of our £5 billion Project Gigabit digital connectivity programme by signing our first major contract in Dorset.

“Thousands of hard-to-reach homes and businesses in the region will get access to faster connections and join the 20 million properties we’ve helped connect over the last three years.

“The benefits of better broadband connectivity cannot be underestimated.

“This work will mean those living in rural areas can enjoy 21st century speeds in the home and workplace, making their lives easier and more productive.”

Gigabit broadband can provide speeds of more than 1,000 megabits per second, more than 30 times faster than copper-based superfast broadband, which is currently available to 97 per cent of UK premises.

While superfast is fast enough for most people’s needs today, the government says gigabit-capable connections will provide the speeds and reliability Britain needs for decades into the future.

According to new data published by independent website ThinkBroadband, seven in ten UK properties can access the fastest and most reliable internet connections needed to take full advantage of revolutionary new advances in technology in the coming decades.

That compares to seven per cent gigabit coverage in 2019.

The government’s target is 85 per cent coverage by 2025.

In the last five months alone, one million premises have been connected to gigabit networks.

The rate at which gigabit-capable internet connections are installed has increased threefold, with companies like Wessex Internet connecting premises at a rate of one every seven seconds.

More than 740,000 premises have been connected through government funding so far.

The Dorset project is the first large-scale scheme under Project Gigabit to deliver gigabit connections to a regional area en-masse.

Millions of rural homes and businesses across the UK are in line for an upgrade due to dozens of multi-million pound contracts, making Project Gigabit one of the largest national infrastructure projects of recent times.

Now the contract in Dorset has been awarded, the government will work with Wessex Internet and the local authority to begin planning the construction of the gigabit-capable network, with spades set to enter the ground in the coming weeks.

Hector Gibson Fleming, CEO of Wessex Internet, pictured, said: “We’re thrilled to have been awarded the first contract under the government’s £5 billion Project Gigabit programme.

“As a business based in North Dorset, our priority has always been to bring fast, reliable broadband to rural communities overlooked by other providers.

“We believe passionately that rural areas must have access to gigabit-capable connectivity and the exciting benefits it brings for homes, businesses and communities.

“Over the last four years, we have connected thousands of homes and businesses across the south west to full fibre broadband and are excited to accelerate our roll out further with this new contract.”

Cllr Jill Haynes, Dorset Council’s portfolio holder for Corporate Development and Transformation, added: “This significant government investment in Dorset is great news for communities and businesses that would otherwise have been left behind as the country moves to gigabit-capable broadband.

“Good broadband connection has never been more important as we rebuild the economy after the pandemic.

“We look forward to working with Wessex Internet and the government on this exciting development in technology, which will greatly benefit some of the most rural parts of our county.”

  • Pictures by Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street.

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