The UK government has updated its Project Gigabit contract with Openreach, increasing its value by £400m from £800m awarded last year, now totalling £1.2bn.

The Single Supplier Framework agreement was part of the overall Project Gigabit scheme, with Openreach contracted to upgrade about 312,000 premises in some of the most remote and rural regions across Great Britain.

The original agreement was followed up by several Cross-Regional contracts awarded to Openreach, aiming at covering rural and remote parts of Scotland, England, and Wales.

The areas targeted in these cross-regional contracts typically cover regions that are thought to be too expensive to cover for smaller suppliers, or areas where there is little or no market interest for broadband rollout.

Already, the contracts approved under the agreement reflect £730m of the investment and will cover about 300,000 premises. In Scotland, the contract amount totals £157m, covering 65,000 premises.

The original investment aimed to provide access to lightning-fast, gigabit-capable (1Gbps+) broadband to around 312,000 homes and businesses across the country, helping remote residents and businesses finally gain access to the fastest connection on the market.

The government has cited a few reasons for the contract modification which sees investment increase by £400m.

The funding will support the need for additional work and services by Openreach, and factors in the increased scope of the contract, which suggests that potentially coverage will be expanded across more regions as part of the rollout contract

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It could however, simply have been amended to counter costs or other, smaller firms cutting back on their broadband rollout schemes.

The contract areas already awarded under the current framework are below:

• Scotland (£157m, 65,000 premises)
• Lancashire, North Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire, West and Mid Surrey, Staffordshire, West Berkshire and Hertfordshire (£149.7 million, 54,300 premises)
• West and North Devon, North West, Mid and South East Wales (£139.1 million, 42,200 premises)
• East and South Shropshire, North Herefordshire, North Wales, and South West Wales (£108 million, 47,000 premises)
• Mid Devon, North Somerset, and South Devon (£77 million, 37,000 premises)
• Essex and North East England (£61 million, 24,000 premises)
• Worcestershire (£41 million, 22,000 premises)