East of England broadband boost for 1 million planned

A new broadband infrastructure firm is aiming to connect one million homes and businesses in the east of England to gigabit broadband by 2025.

Upp said it planned to invest £1 billion in the new fibre-to-the-home network, which will be built in "underserved" regions.

It estimated that 600 new jobs would be created by the project.

Some work has already started in towns across Lincolnshire and Norfolk, the company said.

As the numbers working from home have increased during the pandemic, so has the need for high-speed internet.

A one gigabit (1 Gbps) connection would typically allow the downloading of a high-definition film in under a minute.

Norfolk is one of the areas expected to benefit from the government's "Project Gigabit" scheme to improve broadband from the summer of 2022.

In this case, Upp's financial backing came from Letterone, an international investment business. It is controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman and chaired by Lord Davies of Abersoch, a former Labour Minister for Trade, Investment and Small Business and Infrastructure.

The project also received positive comments from two government ministers, including the Digital Infrastructure minister Matt Warman.

Upp's announcement follows a number of investments by firms looking to finance fibre broadband in areas where copper lines have not been replaced, the Financial Times reports.

Mark Jackson, editor of broadband specialist site ISPReview, said several schemes and incentives were behind the trend: "Over the past few years we've seen various changes that have helped to make the market more attractive."

Mr Jackson suggested that business rates relief on new fibre, changes to regulations, and government-backed investment schemes had all contributed to an increasingly crowded market.

"What we are seeing today thus essentially stems from the seeds that were being planted by the Government and Ofcom around three to four years ago" he added.