More than 50,000 homes and businesses across the county are now able to connect to faster fibre broadband thanks to Superfast Staffordshire, partners Staffordshire County Council and BT confirmed today.
It marks more than half-way through the project, which is part of the Government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme.
Staffordshire County Council's economy leader Mark Winnington said: "More than 50,000 properties can now connect to high-speed broadband thanks to the roll-out of our programme. It is making a real difference to communities across the county, whether it's for learning, business, leisure or to access other services. Superfast Staffordshire is another demonstration of the public sector working with business for effective delivery and is connecting communities in both rural and urban areas."
Bill Murphy, managing director of BT's next generation access, said: "Superfast Staffordshire is a huge engineering project, and the roll-out is progressing extremely well. So far engineers have installed nearly 400 kilometres of fibre optic cable and more than 270 new fibre road-side cabinets.
"Whether it's families wanting to connect to the internet with different devices and tablets at the same time, homeworkers or people running a small business - everything is easier, better and faster with high-speed fibre broadband."
People can follow the progress of the roll-out via the Superfast Staffordshire website: www.superfaststaffordshire.co.uk and via Twitter @superfaststaffs
Once an area has 'gone live', local people will be able to get download speeds of up to 80 megabits (Mbps) and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps*.
It's an 'opt in' service, but because the Openreach network is 'open', residents and businesses wanting to upgrade have a choice of fibre broadband providers, with more than 140 companies now operating in the UK.
