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Home Canterbury News Article
A major £27 million investment has been announced to boost broadband speeds for 90,000 homes and businesses across Kent.
Full-fibre network investor and builder Netomnia hopes the project will also help create jobs and make property more attractive in Canterbury and Ashford.
The firm is targetting UK towns and cities which have been “forgotten” by other broadband providers, and says in its marketing that the investment will "embarrass the rest of the UK".
Although local schemes have been launched to address low broadband speeds, Netomnia believes more needs to be done to improve it.
The full-fibre networks in Canterbury and Ashford will provide symmetrical - equal upload and download speeds - gigabit services up to 10 Gbps (10,000 Mbps).
Netomnia’s networks will cover 90,000 business and residential premises across both areas and surrounding villages, with construction work expected to last 18 months.
It is claimed the investment will meet bandwidth requirements of homes and businesses for centuries.
Telecoms infrastructure builder MJ Quinn has been chosen to construct the networks and push the towns to the top of UK’s broadband league table.
The technology consists of fibre-optic cables which are used to deliver broadband services to premises which provide faster speeds.
Networks like these boost local economies by providing jobs, making property more saleable and enabling a much more attractive base for businesses.
The company's founder and CEO, Jeremy Chelot, said: "Canterbury and Ashford aren’t just commercial opportunities for me and Netomnia.
"The internet transforms lives, it’s a great leveller; if you haven’t got it or you’ve a poor connection you’re disadvantaged.
"I want to see the prosperity the Internet can bring to towns where others haven’t bothered to turn up or have made minimum effort.
"Netomnia’s desire to connect people, in previously forgotten but now fast towns and the level of service from our ISP YouFibre is already embarrassing Internet pretenders, and that drives us forward."
The company hopes to reach one million UK premises by 2024 with full-fibre broadband.
Free wi-fi was rolled out in Canterbury's city centre earlier this year to tackle poor and patchy internet access.
Dozens of new wi-fi hotspots were installed, as part of a major digital transformation carried out by BT.
