£30m Investment in broadband for Wales

The Welsh Assembly Government is investing £30m to provide businesses in North Wales with high-speed broadband.

The FibreSpeed project will link 14 business parks in Wales, as part of a longer term programme to transform broadband services and pricing in the country.

The network, which is the first Government-supported network of this type in the UK, will be partly funded by European Structural Funds managed by the Assembly Government’s Wales European Funding Office.

GEO, part of the Hutchison Whampoa Group, will build and operate the network, and will also part fund the project.

The FibreSpeed project will initially focus on serving key strategic business parks, as this is expected to deliver the most rapid benefits to business.

As well as benefiting businesses located on the parks, the project is also expected to have a positive effect on businesses outside the business parks, communities and the public sector across North Wales, through economic spillover.

The network is expected to generate £29m a year for the Welsh economy by helping companies increase their productivity and attracting inward investment to the region.