The BT Race To Infinity project for Caldecote in Cambridgeshire, due to be finished in April, will be done by June.
According to the latest statement from BT, all premises in Caldecote connected to the Madingley exchange ought to be able to order superfast broadband by June.
A BT spokesperson told us:
“We’re still working hard in Caldecote to connect up remaining areas with superfast broadband. We have needed to adjust and re-plan some of the deployment for various reasons – for example we had a specific request from local residents to re-route part of the planned network to avoid a potential visual impact on their property. However we’re confident we’ll have the work completed within a month and customers should be able to order the service soon after that.”
Read Recombu Digital’s report on Rural BroadbandLast week we heard that superfast broadband was available in just 40 per cent of Caldecote addresses and local residents had received no word on when the job would be done.
Race To Infinity was a competition set up by BT in 2011, to gauge interest in its then-nascent BT Infinity service. Six communities, including South Cambridgeshire, got behind the competition and lobbied hard to win.
Since then, BT has announced its £2.5 billion plan to connect two-thirds of the UK to superfast connections and its been awarded half of the Broadband Delivery for the UK (BDUK) contracts.
Part of why it’s taken BT so long is the company biting off more than it can chew. In a recent meeting, Annette Thorpe, partnership director for BT in the East of England, told Caldecote Parish Council:
“At the time the competition was run, it was not particularly well thought out. When winners were announced we had no idea about the communities we were looking to serve. In some cases we did not have the technology to address the solution for the communities.”
Since then, BT has connected over 15 million UK properties to superfast speeds. Work in Cornwall has seen BT push superfast broadband into areas where previously it would not have considered, so it’s now better suited to deliver on its original promises.
Originally, the work was supposed to be done by Spring 2012, with the deadline eventually being moved to April this year. Let’s hope that by June residents can finally cease their infinite wait for Infinity.
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