SMALL and medium firms in parts of Bradford will be among the first to benefit from a new ultrafast broadband service designed by BT’s local network business, Openreach.

The company said Bradford will be among the first nine cities to get a new broadband service specifically designed for SMEs offering speeds of up to 1Gbps.

It is part of Openreach’s plan to make ultra fast broadband available to up to one million businesses by 2020.

Initial roll-out will be focused on SMEs in high streets, science and business parks businesses clusters without access to its fibre broadband services.

The initial roll-out will include parts of Bradford, Bath, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Salford and central London. The new network will be introduced over the next nine months and is expected to benefit hundreds of thousands of businesses by the end of 2020.

Openreach said expanding it new Fibre to Premises services would also eventually benefit hundreds of thousands of homes in the targeted areas.

Trevor Higgins, BT regional partnership director, said: “This is great news for the region and the country as a whole. The involvement of Bradford in this early stage of the ultrafast roll-out means that our region is, once again, playing a leading role in the development of high-speed communications which are transforming the opportunities for businesses and local communities.

“BT has already invested hundreds of million of pounds in the development of superfast fibre broadband in Yorkshire and the Humber. Now, even as the superfast roll-out continues at pace, we are taking the vital next steps with even faster ultrafast broadband.”

Clive Selley, Openreach chief executive, said the move would help improve broadband speeds in the final five per cent of the country.

He said trials in Bradford aimed at delivering the technology faster and more efficiently had gone well and proved the new techniques, including new ‘plug and play’ technology allowing customers to be connected more quickly and easily.