£18 million of investment is being allocated to help boost broadband speeds across Northern Ireland for home users and local businesses looking to make the most out of fast broadband connections. The Department of Finance and Personnel has been put in charge of distributing the public funds and it will be pumping most of the money into BT to ensure wider coverage and increased download speeds.

The Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment allocated the significant funding last week and it is said to be part of a government initiative to bridge the investment gap between what the telecoms networks were going to spend and the level of funding that should ensure blanket broadband coverage in Northern Ireland.

The government aims to provide 85 per cent of homes and businesses with BT broadband deals operating at a higher speed and wider availability by the start of 2011 and the £18 million will go towards ensuring that this target is reached.

BT has been commissioned to carry out the necessary upgrades and extensions to the current networks and the good news for residents of Northern Ireland is that both urban and rural areas will be included in the upcoming developments.

Although the initial phase will be completed within the next twelve months in order to meet deadlines, the deal commits BT to continue the roll-out and support of the new network until 2015. BT will still be the owner of the infrastructure, but with the public funding it is committed to ensuring that broadband is made available in areas that it might have dismissed as not financially viable.

Simon Gerrard of Simple Broadband confirmed that “home broadband customers in Northern Ireland will really benefit from the high speed BT broadband deals that will become available once the funding is brought to bear and the work is completed.”