Wales will not hit the original 96% superfast broadband target for the country - but is the best connected Celtic nation.

The Welsh Government announced in 2014 that it wanted to have fast fibre internet in 96% of Welsh homes and businesses by Spring 2016.

This target was backed with millions of pounds of UK and Welsh Government cash and EU funds under the Superfast Cymru project with BT, which helped fund access to areas not economically viable for commercial roll-out.

Now we have reached that date the Government says it is unable to provide the figures until Ofcom reports them later in the year.

BT said its combined roll-out under Superfast Cymru and commercial had now reached around 1.21 million premises in Wales.

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Independent service thinkbroadband - widely respected in the industry for the accuracy of its figures - puts the percentage coverage in Wales at 87%.

This is 9% below the original target but a rapid improvement on where Wales started two years ago.

Back in 2014 the percentage of premises receiving superfast broadband at speeds of 24Mbit/s stood at 55%.

This increased to 79% last year and is now over 87%.

This compares to 85% in Scotland and 79% in Northern Ireland, but still lags behind England at 91.5%.

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Superfast Cymru has now also been extended to 2017 to allow an additional 42,000 premises to be covered.

'Every day we’re rolling out superfast fibre to more and more premises'

Ed Hunt, BT director for Superfast Cymru, said: “Every day we’re rolling out superfast fibre to more and more premises across Wales.

“This is a huge engineering project with big challenges but we’re delivering an infrastructure that is having a huge impact on the way we live our lives in Wales.

“When combined with BT’s commercial roll-out, we’ve already provided more than 1.2 million Welsh homes and businesses with access to high-speed fibre broadband.

“As we continue to build the infrastructure we would urge people and businesses to take advantage of this technology and give their internet speeds a major boost by signing up with a broadband service provider.”

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FSB North Wales Development Manager Mike Learmond said: “Access to fast, reliable broadband and mobile services are now essential to businesses success.

"FSB research has found that 99 per cent of small firms rate the internet as highly important to their business.

"Here in North Wales many small firms are making innovative use of better connectivity to deliver real savings, better productivity and new growth opportunities.

“However, some business owners remain frustrated with the quality of service they are getting and it is essential that business owners across North Wales have access to reliable broadband services.”

Frustrated by slow roll-out

One office block left frustrated by the roll-out is Belgravia House in Mold, which houses several businesses close to the BT exchange/fibre cabinet. They have been pushing for fast broadband for the site.

Mark Davies, who handles IT at the office, was told this week they had finally been connected although he says this had now led to more frustration. He said: “The BT website says that BT Infinity is available.

“The BT Openreach site says that Infinity is available to order and to contact our supplier. But a BT business sales advisor tells me that it is not available according to the database they have so I cannot pre-order.

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“I have checked a couple of other internet service providers and their number checkers show that only ADSL and not fibre to the cabinet is available on Belgravia House number.”

North Wales Chamber of Commerce chair Richard Thomas said: “The Government do need to be transparent with the coverage and what the plan is to achieve the stated coverage and the timescale to do it.

“There will be areas currently that may well attract businesses but for the fact they cannot offer Superfast Broadband and cannot say when they will be able to.

“That is unacceptable. So at the very least Welsh Government should publish a map of coverage as it is now and the planned roll out with timescales for areas not covered yet.”

Superfast Cymru is 'progressing well'

A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “The programme is progressing well. So far approximately 581,000 premises in Wales now have access to superfast broadband as a result of Superfast Cymru.

"The overall superfast broadband coverage figure for Wales, combining commercial and Superfast Cymru roll-out, is reported by Ofcom on an annual basis.

“The Ofcom report in August last year found that Wales had the highest availability of superfast broadband amongst the devolved nations, then at 79%, largely due to Superfast Cymru.

“Last year it was announced that the programme would be extended by a year to 2017 to allow an additional 42,000 premises to be covered.

“Some of these are newly built premises and areas which were originally due to have commercial rollout but were no longer deemed commercially viable by the telecommunications companies.

“Enhanced schemes have also been announced for the small percentage of premises which won’t have access to superfast broadband through Superfast Cymru or commercial rollout. This means that every premises in Wales has the ability to request faster broadband, helping make sure that no communities are left behind.”