The Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator project is led and coordinated by the West of England Combined Authority with funding from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
The project is exploring a digital platform to list public assets which may be available for telecoms deployment and looking at how processes could be optimised to help win investment and accelerate digital infrastructure deployment. The project runs from April 2022 to March 2023 and involves the four authorities of the West of England.
The last five years have seen an enormous growth in mobile data consumption in Bristol with a 273% increase in total mobile data traffic in the last five years (2016 – 2021) – OFCOM figures. COVID has changed the pattern of data consumption as more people work from home, however, this has highlighted weakness in our infrastructure. The West of England needs more digital infrastructure in order to cater for this growth in enormous data consumption from citizens and businesses. The West of England has some areas with ‘not spots’ where people cannot get a mobile signal, whilst other areas have capacity problems where people cannot access adequate data services, particularly at times of high demand. We also know that disadvantaged households are more likely not to have fixed broadband and so are adversely affected by areas that are poorly served by mobile coverage and capacity.
In a competitive environment, our region needs to be open to investment to develop the digital infrastructure we need to support and grow our economy. As COVID has underlined, high quality connectivity – fixed broadband and mobile – is key to our future prosperity and spreading digital inclusion.
Visit the Combined Authority website for more information on this project
Visit the DCMS website to find out more
