Sittingbourne is one of three areas in the south east to be chosen to have super-fast broadband installed, meaning more than 14,400 homes and businesses could soon be receiving the service.

Reporter Emma Grove (pictured) accompanied a Swale council delegation to the BT Centre in the City of London to find out what it means for residents.

Super-fast broadband is as important to Sittingbourne's economic future as the town's road and rail links.

This is the stark message from council leader Cllr Andrew Bowles (Con) who believes thousands of residents who commute into London could stay local if the technology is available.

As well as the obvious leisure opportunities - downloading music, films and television programmes in seconds - Cllr Bowles says super-fast broadband could aid local business and people who rely on central London broadband speeds.

This would have several knock-on benefits - including a cut in people's carbon footprints and an increase in money spent locally as people work from home more.

Cllr Bowles, who has been campaigning for a faster broadband service, led a group from Swale council to BT Centre on a fact-finding trip to discover what it will offer and the logistics of installing it.

Also present were Cllr John Morris, executive portfolio holder for community services, Cllr John Wright, executive portfolio holder for regeneration and the planning team's development control manager Andy Jeffers.

The group was given a demonstration of how fast the new broadband service will be and what it will mean for businesses and residents.

Most broadband services at the moment are run through copper cabling and the average download speed is 2Mb.

But the new service will be fibre-based, increasing download speeds up to 40Mb and upload speeds to 10Mb.

BT Openreach, which is supplying the service, is using two types of fibre - fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) and fibre to the premises (FTTP).

The link from cabinets to premises will still be copper but the speed will be increased because the link from the exchange to cabinets will be replaced with fibre.

Sittingbourne will be getting FTTC delivered to 48 of the town's green street cabinets, which means 14,406 premises, and around 27,000 residents, will be able to receive the service if they sign up to it with the various providers Openreach hope will take it up.

For those who choose to sign up to super-fast broadband, there will be no more competing for broadband space within a household and they could sign up from about £20 a month.

Several devices will be able to run alongside each other and the speed of uploading and downloading games, films and videos is much faster.

Super-fast broadband could also significantly change the Sittingbourne business world as it will increase the opportunity for people to work from home by problem-free file sharing and video conferencing. To extend the access to super-fast broadband within the borough, Swale councillors would need to lobby Kent County Council.

At the moment it is at the planning stage, but an Openreach representative said they could be set up within six weeks of starting the installation.

Surveys have already started to decide which of the cabinets will be fitted with the new fibre link and councillors are hopeful there might be an opportunity to organise apprenticeships, but this has not been confirmed.

Users could download a standard music single such as Cheryl Cole’s, pictured, Fight For This Love in two seconds, and her whole album, 3 Words,
in 30 seconds.

What can super-fast broadband offer?

Users could download a standard music single such as Cheryl Cole's, pictured, Fight For This Love in two seconds, and her whole album, 3 Words, in 30 seconds.

An HD episode of Sky’s TV programme Lost would take five minutes to download.

An HD feature length film, such as The Twilight Saga: New Moon, takes fewer than 10 minutes to download.

To download a video game, users are looking at about 20 minutes.

Super-fast broadband can also run four streams of HD TV at once.