Superfast fibre optic broadband has arrived at the Lizard Peninsula.
Mainland Britain’s most southerly point is the latest place to benefit from the £132 million Superfast Cornwall partnership. Around 700 businesses and homes on The Lizard and the neighbouring villages of Cadgwith and Ruan Minor now have access to the high-speed technology.
Since the programme started in 2011, fibre-optic broadband has become available to more than 45% of Cornish businesses and homes, and over 17,000 customers have already been connected. Take-up on The Lizard is reported to be climbing rapidly, with many businesses having placed orders for the new faster service.
Nigel Ashcroft, programme director of Superfast Cornwall for Cornwall Development Company, which manages the initiative, said: “I am thrilled that superfast broadband has reached The Lizard. As the most southerly point of mainland Britain, this is a huge milestone for Superfast Cornwall, which has already achieved some world firsts in terms of delivering a rural broadband infrastructure.
“The latest enablement at The Lizard demonstrates our commitment to improving broadband connectivity across the whole of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, whether in towns and business hubs or in isolated rural communities.”
The Superfast Cornwall partnership expects to make fibre optic broadband available to at least 80% of premises in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly by the end of 2014. Alternative technologies, such as satellite and advanced copper solutions, will be used to boost broadband speeds in locations where optical fibre is not currently viable.
