Ballymena Business Centre has successfully secured the roll out of ‘Fibre-to-the-Premises’ (FTTP) broadband to 52 business units located in the Co. Antrim facility.
The broadbands come as a result of a government voucher scheme and Openreach’s ‘Community Fibre Partnership’ (CFP) scheme.
Openreach said its CFP scheme “aims to build a customised fibre solution to bring ultrafast, ultra-reliable ‘full fibre’ broadband in communities who are not currently included in any private or publicly financed fibre rollout plans.” It does this by putting joint funding arrangements in place and advising people on grants they can access from local authorities or the Government.
Allen Irwin, Senior Funding Manager at Openreach said that the new network allows “individual business units order a broadband service which suits their individual needs from a host of providers. This allows them to choose a bandwidth level that suits their business requirements and budget limitations, but the technology makes possible up to 1 gigabit (1000mbps) speeds if required, allowing for flexibility of choice for tenants."
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He continued: “Through the CFP, the centre was able to utilise Rural Gigabit Connectivity vouchers that are available from the government. It is fantastic that we have been able to work together to find a solution that accommodates their speed and download demands so that 40 businesses, located at 52 units, that form part of the scheme can now avail of full fibre broadband at no additional cost.”
Stephen Scullion, Centre Manager of the Ballymena Business Centre added: “Having high-speed broadband available at the Business Centre has not only increased our own productivity, it has also made our premises more attractive to new companies who are looking for a base to run their business out of which has high speed broadband services. We are now able to cast a wider net to potential clients such as tech companies who rely on high-speed broadband to operate."
There are currently eight communities in Northern Ireland that have used the CFP scheme with Openreach, including parts of Dundrod, Moy, Killyman, Markethill and Ballymena.
Openreach plans to have half of Northern Ireland’s premises enabled with full fibre broadband by the end of March 2021. The organisation said that more than 260,000 homes and businesses in NI can order full fibre broadband service now.
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