More than 12,000 Suffolk households have signed up to the Better Broadband campaign – and work to extend the network to rural areas could start before the end of the year.
Suffolk had set itself an ambitious target of 10,000 homes to back Better Broadband, but when the deadline was reached at the weekend it totalled 12,179 – almost exactly the same proportion of households as signed up in Norfolk.
County council leader Mark Bee said: 'This is a great result – it shows how important broadband is to people across Suffolk. We can now go ahead with the process to select a partner, which will start in the next few weeks.'
He hoped that a partner would be in place by September, which could mean the first properties would be wired up to broadband by the end of the year, or early 2013.
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