The first phase of a £27 million contract to provide superfast broadband to homes and businesses in South Yorkshire has been completed. Now, almost 95,000 businesses and residents are able to access superfast speeds as a result of the Superfast South Yorkshire programme – a partnership between the four South Yorkshire local authorities, Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, the government and Openreach.

Approximately 10,000 more properties will be upgraded as part of the second phase, with the majority set to benefit from fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology capable of speeds of up to 1Gbps (gigabit per second). Among the businesses to benefit from the faster broadband speeds is Delta Adhesives, which manufacture and sells own-brand and bespoke industrial adhesives and sealants.

“We had very slow speeds of around 4Mbps which made uploading and downloading data very difficult. We had limited capacity to issue electronic invoices and often had to send them by post which was both expensive and time-consuming. Online banking was also a nightmare to use, often freezing or crashing which made us very reluctant to use it,” said managing director Peter Atkinson.

“Having FTTP has enabled us to develop our IT systems and use them to their full potential. We’ve moved to an integrated VOIP telephony system which means as soon as a customer calls us their account is immediately accessible. We’ve also tightened security by improving our on-site and off-site back-up and business continuity arrangements and enhancing our premises alarm systems,” he added.

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