Up to 99% of homes will have access to ultrafast fibre broadband within four years.

The government has committed funds to accelerate the roll out by one year with preparatory work already underway in nearly 14,000 homes and business premises with 20% of those already fully connected to the network.

Properties in Gansey were the first to come on stream and areas currently under construction include Glen Auldyn, Sulby, Derbyhaven and Ballakilpheric. Within the next six months, fibre is also due to be laid in Baldrine, Colby Glen, Colby Village, Douglas and the Whitebridge.

Earlier this year, Manx Telecom was awarded a £10 million contract to deliver ultrafast fibre broadband in nine intervention zones across the island.

The zones are remote, difficult to reach areas where around 25% of premises and homes are located and, typically, where providing high speed broadband services is likely to be commercially unviable.

The acceleration of the National Broadband Plan as part of the strategy is one of many initiatives to be supported under the £100 million Economic Recovery Fund that was announced by Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan in his budget update to July’s Tynwald.

Political member with responsibility for Digital Isle of Man, Daphne Caine MHK, said: ’Keeping our island connected is an absolute priority for the department and forms part of the Isle of Man Government’s wider economic recovery; a vision which allows us not just to rebuild after Covid-19 but that also better enables local business to grow and develop.

’As well as supporting enhanced online services which align with the government’s carbon neutrality policy, it further promotes more widespread remote working, which has been proven over the recent months to be not just required, but essential to the way we work.’

For details of measures designed to help the Manx economy after lockdown, see the report in the Manx Independent, which is on sale now.