Superfast Dorset provides boost to rural properties

Homes and businesses in Dorset that thought they were going to be left out of the county's fibre optic broadband upgrade have been given new hope.

The Superfast Dorset project has now increased its targets to provide superfast speeds to 96 per cent of the region. 

Officials have agreed a contract worth £31.75 million with BT, which will see the service provider carry out essential engineering work, before connecting the first properties by the end of 2014. According to the company's projections, the initiative should take three years to complete. 

There were two other North Dorset projects that submitted funding applications to try to cover previously excluded areas, but they were rejected as the rural spots were in locations already covered by Superfast Dorset's contract.

Hilary Cox of Dorset County Council said: "It became increasingly apparent that it would not be possible to alter our main contract with BT in order to increase overall coverage across Dorset."

She concluded by admitting that installing two networks through different providers so close together would not have been logistically possible.