A major expansion of broadband rollout across Devon and Somerset has received Government approval to provide thousands more homes and businesses in Devon with access to a superfast connection.

The Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) agency has given the go-ahead for Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) to increase access to its planned ultrafast (up to 1,000Mbps) broadband with Gigaclear to over 3,000 more homes and businesses in hard to reach areas of Devon.

Gigaclear is already building a new full fibre broadband network on behalf of CDS for over 41,000 homes and businesses initially. This work is due to be completed by December 2019. Today’s announcement paves the way to extend the network even further by December 2020.

Information about the Gigaclear roll-out timetable will be updated regularly on the web at www.gigaclear.com/connecting-devon-and-somerset-rollout-schedule. Residents and businesses can also expect to receive news and information from Gigaclear and CDS by post.

CDS is also finalising proposals to Government to expand the superfast wireless broadband coverage by Airband to around a further 3,000 homes and businesses across northern and west Devon by December 2020, with the capacity to deliver ultrafast speeds.

Airband is currently building a new wireless network for CDS that will provide access to superfast broadband for 13,000 homes and businesses across the area by December 2019, and is completing a network to serve almost 5,000 hard to reach properties in Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks with superfast broadband.

Information about the Airband roll-out timetable will also be regularly updated on the Airband project page, which can be found by entering your postcode at www.airband.co.uk/connecting-devon-and-somerset. Email updates will also be available for any resident or business who registers their interest via the form on the Airband project page.

CDS connects some of the hardest to reach communities in England, where the commercial market will not provide the infrastructure. To date, more than 250,000 homes and businesses have access to superfast broadband thanks to CDS investments *. CDS does this by awarding public subsidised contracts to companies through competitive tender to build the infrastructure needed, such as fibre or wireless connections. CDS is only able to invest where suppliers have no declared and credible plans to invest their own resources to extend their networks.

So far, over 248,000 miles (400,000 kms) of fibre cable have already been laid, enough to circle the Earth ten times, in a programme that has taken over 2 million-man hours to date.

CDS is backed with funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the EU’s European Regional Development Fund, the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership, local authorities and the private sector.

The proposed expansion complements an increased level of commercial investment in broadband across the region.