Digital Region

Digital Region
Commercial?Yes
Type of projectNext-generation high-speed broadband network
Products'Superfast Broadband'[1]
LocationSouth Yorkshire region, England, UK
Owneroriginally:
Yorkshire Forward
subsequently:
Department for Business, Innovation & Skills
EstablishedApril 2009; 17 years ago (2009-04)[2]
Disestablished15 August 2014; 11 years ago (2014-08-15)
FundingGrants, loans[2]
Statusdefunct
Websitewww.digitalregion.co.uk

Digital Region, also stylised digital region, was a project in South Yorkshire set up to establish a high-speed next-generation 'Superfast Broadband' network in the specific region of northern England, first seeded in 2006; 20 years ago (2006),[3] with 97% population coverage expected by the end of 2012.[2] It was the first of its kind in the United Kingdom (UK). The project was co-ordinated by Digital Region Limited (DRL), owned by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) (having taken over the role from the now defunct Yorkshire Forward), and the four local authorities that encompass South Yorkshire; these being Sheffield City Council,[2] Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council, and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council.[1] Thales Transport and Security was chosen to design, build and operate the project on behalf of Digital Region Limited (who will manage the project),[2] registered in England no: 5586340, registered office: Electric Works, Sheffield Digital Campus, Sheffield, S1 2BJ.

On 15 August 2013, it was announced that the project would close, due to the ongoing financial issues it has been facing.[4][5]

Funding

The hope of the project was that it would eventually become self-financing, however loans and grants of over £90 million[1] were used to enable the project to start. The project received:

Due to low take-up,[3] the project suffered a very significant operating loss; not even taking into account the substantial interest payments due on loans for capital construction.

Coverage

The project area covered the city, towns and villages of Sheffield,[2] Barnsley, Doncaster, and Rotherham. It was expected to serve around 1.3 million people, 546,000 homes, and 40,000 businesses.[6]

Closure

Whilst the build of the project was substantially completed, it had a low take-up. None of the six major consumer ISPs were signed up to resell services on the network, and after a number of significant startups on the Digital Region network enjoyed success with Superfast Fibre in South Yorkshire, the incumbent telephone operator British Telecom (BT), deployed its own fibre-based broadband services, attracting many more users due to an existing user base upgrading, and the wide variety of ISPs available (PlusNet, Sky, TalkTalk, and BT).[7]

The Digital Region network closed finally on 15 August 2014,[8] with many of its resellers closing at that point. Origin Broadband acquired many of the customers who were on the Digital Region network,[9] and succeeded the defunct network with their own bespoke ADSL2+ network,[10] while other ISPs went on to be resellers for other network operators.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Digital Region". www.Barnsley.gov.uk. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council. 10 January 2011. Archived from the original on 26 February 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Sheffield City Council - What is Digital Region?". www.Sheffield.gov.uk. Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Sheffield City Council. 9 August 2010. Archived from the original on 28 February 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
  3. ^ a b "£100 million spent on broadband network to serve just 3,000 customers". www.ThinkBroadband.com. London, England: thinkbroadband. 26 July 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  4. ^ "Breaking: Multimillion South Yorkshire digital region scheme collapses". www.DoncasterFreePress.co.uk. Doncaster, South Yorkshire: Doncaster Free Press. 15 August 2013. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 15 August 2013.
  5. ^ "Closure of Digital Region now offers best deal for public purse". DigitalRegion.co.uk. Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Digital Region Limited (DRL). 15 August 2013. Archived from the original on 28 October 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  6. ^ "The Project | Digital Region". Archived from the original on 26 February 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
  7. ^ "Update ISP Fluidata and IFNL bring 1Gbps FTTH broadband to 50000 UK premises". Archived from the original on 13 January 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  8. ^ "South Yorkshire's superfast shambles Digital Region shutting down for good | Recombu". 19 February 2014.
  9. ^ "Origin".
  10. ^ "Origin".

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