NORTH Yorkshire has won £16.4 million Government funding to install a high-speed broadband infrastructure in the region by 2017.

Connecting North Yorkshire, a programme led by the North Yorkshire County Council and other partners including NYnet, was granted the funding by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), a Government organisation tasked with ensuring that all areas of the UK can receive broadband access by 2012 and high-speed broadband by 2017.

North Yorkshire was chosen in October 2010 as one of four areas for a pilot rural broadband project.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said they had allocated £53 million to ensure the UK had the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015.

He said: “This pilot has made real progress and the funding allocation marks an important step in taking superfast broadband to the homes and businesses of North Yorkshire.”

NYnet is also working with the European Regional Development Fund to secure match funding bringing the total investment to £25 to £30 million.

County Councillor Carl Les, chairman of Connecting North Yorkshire, said: “The ability to offer services such as remote access to computers and servers, video-conferencing, web-meetings and access to a company telephony system, will put North Yorkshire on a level playing field with the major cities such as Leeds and London.”

David Cullen, NYnet chief executive, said a procurement process was now under way for the building of the new network. This process is expected to take 12 months and should be completed by June 2012.