MP Meets With Broadband Provider Offering Gigabit Connection in Reading

Alok Sharma, the Member of Parliament for Reading West, on Friday 16th May 2014 met with representatives from Hyperoptic Broadband, an Internet Service Provider promising speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second in Reading.

Alok met with Hyperoptic’s Managing Director, Dana Pressman Tobak, to discuss the company’s expansion plans. Hyperoptic has chosen Reading as one of the three ‘hypercities’ outside of London to receive the fibre-to-the-home broadband service at new commercial and residential developments.

The three locations, which also include Bristol and Cardiff, were selected based on a number of factors, including consumer demand and overall density of population.

Alok has been campaigning for faster broadband speeds across Reading and earlier this month, at the request of one of his constituents, wrote to all homes in Tidmarsh urging them to register their interest in faster internet speeds on the Superfast Berkshire website http://www.superfastberkshire.org.uk

Alok also raised the issue of broadband speeds with the former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, during a visit to Reading in April last year.

Superfast Berkshire is a campaign being supported by Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership and all of Berkshire’s unitary authorities to improve broadband speed and coverage across Berkshire in the areas that are not commercially viable to the private sector.

Alok Sharma said: “Securing faster broadband for residents and businesses across Reading is one of my top priorities as an MP and will be key to unlocking future local economic growth. The fact that has selected Reading as one of the first hypercities in which to roll out its Gigabit broadband service is a mark of confidence in the town and I hope that this kind of service will start to become the norm in the near future.”

Dana Tobak, Managing Director and co-founder of Hyperoptic, commented: “I was delighted to meet with Alok Sharma to discuss the requirement for hyper-fast broadband in his West Reading constituency. We recently announced that Reading would be one of the first towns in the UK to benefit from our gigabit broadband rollout. We are currently encouraging residents and businesses to register interest as we prioritise installations in buildings where there is high demand.”

Dana continued: “Reading is very important to Hyperoptic - West Reading is also home to our customer services team, where we employ over 20 people. It is also a strategic location for the UK’s technology industry, as many of the world’s leading technology companies, and their employees, are based there. We look forward to working with Alok Sharma to enable his vision of making Reading one of the best connected towns in the UK.”