More than 600 public services across North Wales, South East Wales and Pembrokeshire can now access greater internet speeds as a result of a £11.5m UK Government levelling-up fund.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said it has connected full-fibre broadband to 620 sites across Wales as part of Westminster’s agenda to level up public services.
The rollout is the largest public sector broadband project in Wales.
It is hoped commercial broadband providers will be incentivised to upgrade surrounding homes and businesses using the government-funded gigabit network - a cheaper and quicker alternative than building the network from scratch.
Local services including hospitals, police stations, libraries, and care homes can now access internet speeds of more than one gigabit (1,000 megabits) per second.
Full-fibre broadband was rolled out to the Cardiff Capital Region, Pembrokeshire and North Wales via the Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme.
A total of 166 public sites were connected in the Cardiff Capital Region.
In Pembrokeshire, 68 public sites were connected, while in North Wales full-fibre was rolled out to 311 public buildings in areas like Betws-y-Coed, Rhyl and Llandudno.
An additional 75 public services in rural areas near Welshpool, Bangor and St Davids were also connected to full-fibre broadband via the Rural Gigabit Connectivity (RGC) Hubs.
Secretary of State for Wales, Simon Hart said: “Every day increasingly more public services are being delivered online. The investment of £11.5m from the UK Government to improve connectivity means the public will have better access to these services which will be faster and more efficient.”
The £11.5m investment is in addition to the UK Government’s Project Gigabit, the £5bn programme to provide better broadband to rural homes and businesses in Wales and the UK.
Last year, ministers announced that up to 234,000 rural premises in Wales could be in scope for a broadband upgrade through the project.
