A Government minister has praised KCOM as it reveals it will reach its target of making ultrafast broadband available to 150,000 properties by the end of the year.
A Government minister has praised KCOM as it reveals it will reach its target of making ultrafast broadband available to 150,000 properties by the end of the year.
Matt Hancock MP, Minister of State for Digital, visited Hull to see progress on KCOM’s deployment of its world-leading Lightstream service.
And the minister even took to the skies, climbing a telegraph pole aboard a cherry picker to get a better vantage point of the communication company’s £60m full fibre rollout.
Sporting an engineer’s high-vis vest and hard hat, Mr Hancock said: “KCOM has done a tremendous job in rolling out full fibre broadband for the homes and businesses in Hull.
“Full fibre is fundamental for fashioning a Britain fit for the future, and we are investing more than £1bn in taking fibre to new heights, by stimulating further and faster roll-out of full fibre networks across the UK.”
With just four weeks to go until the end of the year, KCOM has confirmed it will reach its target of making Lightstream available to 150,000 properties across Hull and East Yorkshire in 2017.
Lightstream’s Fibre To The Premises (FTTP) technology can deliver download speeds of 250Mbps (megabits per second) for residential customers and one Gigabit per second for businesses.
KCOM’s Executive Vice President Gary Young, said: “I am delighted that we will reach 150,000 properties by the end of 2017, as promised.
“This is a major milestone for KCOM and will bring real benefits for businesses and households in Hull and East Yorkshire. Providing ultrafast connectivity to Hull has already established it as the digital capital of the UK and shows our commitment is as strong as ever to create a city that is fit for the 21st Century.
“It also paves the way for the final phase of our Lightstream deployment that will bring ultrafast broadband to everyone in our network.”
Mr Young added that reaching the milestone shows Hull is continuing to lead the way in helping the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport attain its target of providing superfast broadband to 95 per cent of UK premises by the end of 2017.
The Hull-based company has also revealed it has recently connected its 50,000th residential customer to Lightstream as well as providing its 5,000th fibre connection to local businesses.
The company predicts that within the next month the number of its customers with fibre broadband will surpass the number with old fashioned copper internet connections.
