A small IT business has been boosted by superfast broadband as a long-awaited internet roll-out announces that it has now made fibre broadband available to more than 170,000 homes and businesses across the county.

Husband and wife team Andy and Val Hibbs run IT business Craft ICT from their home office in Mundford. They were one of the first to sign up to the new service when the Better Broadband for Norfolk (BBfN) was introduced.

Mr Hibbs said: 'Our broadband speeds rocketed from 4Mbps to 60Mbps in the space of minutes. We knew it was exactly what we needed to make our business run more efficiently.'

Craft ICT had previously struggled to carry out simple daily tasks due to its broadband connection, according to Mr Hibbs.

'Broadband is essential to our business, our whole business model relies on it.

'But whenever we wanted to complete software upgrades or download customer files we'd have to set it to download or upload overnight because it would take so long,' explained Andy.

The company is now implementing previously unavailable systems and reaping the benefits of cost and efficiency savings, Mr Hibbs added.

Mundford is one of the latest areas of Norfolk to benefit from BBfN, a £41m partnership between Norfolk County Council and BT, which aims to ensure more than 80 per cent of Norfolk's premises can receive a superfast broadband service (24 megabits per second and above) by the end of this year.

Ian Monson, county councillor for the Brecks division which includes Mundford, said: 'Broadband is one of the issues I am contacted about the most by the residents I represent.

'It is heartening to hear of the progress that has been made to date and I know that even more funding is being provided to bring better broadband to a greater number of homes and businesses in Norfolk as quickly as possible, which is very welcome news.'

Elizabeth Truss, MP for South West Norfolk, recently met with businesses including Craft ICT when she visited Mundford, to see the impact of superfast broadband on the village.

'I've met businesses in Mundford who are making fantastic use of improved broadband – supplying clients in Brazil, Myanmar and the US,' she said.

'It's for this reason that the roll out of superfast broadband is so important to the rural economy.'

Are you still missing out on superfast broadband? Let us know by emailing andrew.fitchett@archant.co.uk