West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin today welcomed ‘significant’ progress upgrading over 80 per cent of Malvern’s broadband network. Thirty-nine out of 47 cabinets have already been upgraded and plans are underway to complete six more. This means that just West Malvern is currently experiencing delays as the upgrades are rolled out across the town – but that discussions are underway to complete this work. The work is part of a schedule of commercial upgrades carried out by BT. The company is also bidding for a £10 million county-wide programme to extend the superfast broadband network to the 'commercially unviable' areas. Harriett commented: “A large number of cabinets have now been upgraded and most Malvern people now have access to superfast broadband speeds. “You can check to see if your cabinets are switched on by visiting the BT website and registering an interest. “It is important that as many areas as possible get access to proper broadband speeds to allow people to work from home and get the most from the internet. “It is just as important that we put our rural areas in the spotlight and do all we can to make sure that all areas of Worcestershire are brought up to speed as quickly as possible. “I am running an event next month to help rural villages find out more about how they can get superfast internet speeds right now and I look forward to helping the whole of my constituency towards a total solution.” Harriett recently met with Culture Secretary Maria Miller to discuss the problems of upgrading difficult-to-reach rural areas, known as the ‘last 10 per cent’. The Government has allocated £3.35m to Worcestershire County Council to help fix this problem and the council has added a further £8.5m to extend the superfast broadband network. The summit will also include presentations from a number of providers who are already offer fast broadband connections to rural communities using a range of alternative technologies.