Further £32m committed to extend Project Stratum rollout

Northern Ireland’s state-backed Project Stratum has received an additional £32m of funding to extend its full fibre rollout to 8,500 more premises.

The £165m contract for delivery of Project Stratum was awarded to Fibrus Networks in November 2020 and by the end of 2021 infrastructure had been delivered to more than 22k premises.

This expansion covers 2,500 harder-to-reach properties out of the scope of the original contract, plus a further 6,000 premises.

Fibrus Networks COO Conor Harrison said: “The additional funding allows more of the most remote properties to get access to a service that every household needs to stay connected in modern society.

“By the end of 2025 our hope is that every property has access to proper fibre infrastructure and we intend to play our part in making this a reality.”

The DCMS has allocated £22million of the capital funding with both DfE and DAERA providing additional capital funding of £4.85million.