MORE businesses in the district will soon be able to take advantage of faster broadband speeds as communications giant BT rolls out its superfast and ultrafast schemes to almost 3,500 premises.

In the coming months a further 2,000 premises in Bradford district are expected to be upgraded under the Superfast West Yorkshire project, which aims to give 98 per cent of homes and businesses in the region access to fibre broadband.

And following a trial of ultrafast fibre-to-the-premises technology in two locations in Bradford last year, the district is among the first to benefit from the technology in phase one of the roll-out.

The ultrafast speeds of up to 1Gbps were trialled at premises in Kirkgate and Listerhills Science Park. Now a further 1,400 sites will soon be able to make use of the ultrafast technology, which is designed for small and medium businesses.

Emma Peace, senior project manager at Openreach, responsible for the Superfast West Yorkshire project, said: “The overall message for Bradford district is really positive. It already has excellent coverage in our commercial programme and we are continuing to invest in Bradford, both through our partnership with Superfast West Yorkshire and our ultrafast programme.”

She added that benefits of ultrafast broadband to businesses are that it opens up opportunities for them to do things faster, such as transactions, as well as allowing them to offer extra to customers, such as free WiFi.

Superfast West Yorkshire is a partnership between the five West Yorkshire local authorities, York, and BT.

The first phase saw key parts of the district included in the £21.96 million project which reached 67,500 premises in total.

Investment in the second phase, worth £19.5m, is being used to improve coverage and access to superfast fibre broadband across West Yorkshire and York over the next 18 months.

It will benefit areas including Haworth, Keighley and Steeton.

While superfast connectivity offers speeds of up to 80Mbps, ultrafast broadband reaches up to 1Gbps. BT aims to make this available to up to 12 million homes and businesses in the UK by the end of 2020 using G.fast and fibre-to-the-premises.