Town joins super-fast broadband revolution

More than 15,000 householders and firms are poised to join the high-speed revolution as engineers complete upgrades over the coming weeks.

People living and working in the area are among the first in the UK to benefit from BT's roll-out of fibre-based broadband.

John Anderson, BT's Yorkshire and Humber regional director, said: "This is an exciting development in the region's fast-moving broadband story. Households and businesses switching to super-fast broadband will soon be experiencing the internet as they have never experienced it before.

"The advent of BT fibre-based broadband in Yorkshire and Humber will support local jobs and the local economy and is a vital part of BT's broadband plans for the area. As our roll-out of super-fast, fibre-based broadband gathers pace, many more customers in other parts of the region can look forward to faster speeds in the pipeline."

BT has announced plans to invest up to 2.5bn in the technology, which it says could become available to around two-thirds of UK premises by 2015 if investment conditions are favourable.

In a joint statement, Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford MP Yvette Cooper and Jon Trickett, Hemsworth MP, said: "The arrival of super-fast broadband is good news for local businesses and householders in Pontefract, who will now be among the first to get the chance to use faster new technology."

Super-fast speeds allow users to run multiple bandwidth-hungry applications at the same time.

For example, some members of a family could be watching different high definition (HD) films or 3D TV, while others play online games or work on complex graphics or video projects.

For businesses, the new network will underpin the introduction of many new services and applications.

Further roll-out plans are due to be announced later this year.