DCMS Innovation Fund Pilot

Hampshire has won a further £1.2million of funding from Government to help extend superfast broadband across the county. This extra money is to explore innovative solutions for superfast broadband that could fill the gaps in some of the more remote areas of the county. The trial is to take place across the Ropley, Bramdean and Privett exchange areas. A detailed map of the area of the trial can be seen here.

The £1.2million funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport provides a boost for the County Council's commitment to ensure that as many of Hampshire's homes and business as possible have access to superfast broadband and recognises the Council's willingness to work with partners in support of this goal.

Hampshire will host one of only eight successful bids made by private sector suppliers to use money from the Government's £10m Broadband Innovation Fund to explore ways to take superfast broadband to the more remote and harder to reach places in the country - by testing a range of innovative hybrid engineering techniques.

Hampshire's Superfast Broadband programme is already on track to support the rollout of superfast broadband to at least 95 percent of the County, and this additional funding, for a substantial trial, means that coverage could be extended even further.

Leader of Hampshire County Council, Councillor Roy Perry, said: "Access to superfast broadband plays an important role in Hampshire's economic growth and performance. This latest announcement will support our continuing efforts to explore new and even more innovative ways in which residents can gain access to superfast broadband in parts of the County that are expensive to reach and have not been considered commercially viable by internet providers. Ultimately, these projects should help to make superfast services even more widely available.

"It is because of the Council's willingness to invest in the next phase of the Hampshire Superfast Broadband programme that at least 95% of properties will be able to access superfast broadband services once the project is complete. I believe that access to technology for homes and businesses is vitally important to Hampshire's economic prosperity and the quality of life of Hampshire's residents, which is why we have committed significant funds from the Council and why we're doing everything we can to make it possible for even more of the homes and businesses in Hampshire including farms to gain access to superfast broadband just as soon as is practical."

The company that is building the £1.2 million contract is Kent based Call Flow Solutions.

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