Plea for superfast broadband to be rolled out in university area

Hull-based telecoms firm KC will shortly announce the location for the next phase of its roll-out of fibre-optic cables to replace its copper network, which by the end of next year will allow 15,000 homes in East Yorkshire to benefit from broadband speeds 10 times faster than currently available.

Beverley ward city councillors Karen Mathieson and Dave McCobb have now asked the company to bring the upgrade to the Avenues, Newland Avenue, University and Beverley High Road areas – where thousands of Hull University students and many of their lecturers live.

Coun McCobb said: “Everyone welcomes KC’s move to improve the number of homes that can access super-fast broadband. The city desperately needs this kind of investment in infrastructure.

“I have asked KC to consider including the Avenues, Newland Avenue, the area around the University and Beverley High Road in their next phase. 

“These areas have a much higher than average level of internet use and need the service. They also contain some very diverse communities which will allow KC to test demand from different types of households.”

Coun McCobb also claimed some residents were paying for a service they were not getting, which the company disputes.

He said: “Parts of our area don’t have access to high-speed broadband.

“We have even had reports of people paying for a level of broadband that the local infrastructure can’t support – in effect, paying for a service they cannot receive. Clearly something needs to be done about this.”

Nick Thompson, KC’s director of consumer services, said: “Every customer on our Hull and East Yorkshire network already has access to our up to 24Mbps high-speed broadband through our Karoo Lite, Mid and Pro services.

“As is the case with all UK mainstream broadband services, the download speeds customers receive vary according to how far they live from the nearest telephone exchange – this is nothing to do with our local network infrastructure.”

He added: “We’re investing millions of pounds to install super-fast fibre services and will announcing the locations for the next phase of our fibre deployment before Christmas. The vast majority of our customers already receive download speeds that would be the envy of many broadband users elsewhere in the UK.”

The new hi-tech network was launched in the village of Woodmansey, between Hull and Beverley, in September.

About 280 households were given the opportunity of trialling technology that allows them to download an entire music album in less than two seconds, an hour-long television show in just 31 seconds and a full high-definition movie in one to two minutes.

Customers taking part will not be charged extra for the first six months but have been asked to report back to KC to tell them about their experience.

The technology also enables households to stream videos, high definition TV, websites and other online services to multiple devices like PCs, iPads and TVs, simultaneously and with excellent picture quality, the firm said.

One resident said it was like “swapping a Reliant Robin for a Ferrari”.

The new cabling has also being laid in the Great Thornton Street area of the city centre, and in the next fortnight it will be installed in the East Riding villages of Weel, Swine, and Benningholme.

In July, the industry regulator Ofcom said Hull had the third lowest take-up rates of fixed-line broadband services in the country, at just 50 per cent.

Ofcom’s interactive map showed the Western Isles had the lowest, at 46 per cent, while the highest rate, of 80 per cent, was on the South Coast in Brighton.