Stone has been named as Openreach accelerates its full-fibre build to ‘harder to reach’ market towns over the next 14 months.
Earlier this week Openreach, the company responsible for providing the UK’s broadband infrastructure, has outlined plans to make ultrafast broadband available in Stone and 226 other market towns and villages across the UK.
This 14-month building plan is underway and is anticipated to be completed by March 2021. These targets form part of Openreach’s previously stated target to reach four million homes and businesses with ‘full-fibre’ technology by March 2021.
The plans build on successful cost busting village trials launched at the tail end of last year – which have seen engineers developing a range of new tools, skills and techniques to help Openreach extend its full-fibre network into areas previously considered too complex or expensive to upgrade.
There are also clear economic benefits to building full-fibre in rural areas. In a report by the Centre for Economics & Business Research (Cebr) – “Full fibre broadband: A platform for growth” – commissioned by Openreach in 2019, revealed that with a future-proof and reliable fibre connection to every property by 2025:
· Half a million people could be brought back into the workforce through enhanced connectivity
· At least 400,000 more people could work from home, allowing them to live and work where they choose
· 270,000 people could be freed to move out of cities in rural areas – helping stimulate regional and rural economic growth
· 300 million commuting trips could be saved each year, with three billion fewer kilometres travelled by car.
Openreach’s CEO, Clive Selley, said:
“Our full fibre build programme is going great guns – having passed over 2 million premises already on the way to our 4m target by March 2021. We’re now building at around 26,000 premises a week in over 100 locations – reaching a new home or business every 23 seconds That’s up from 13,000 premises a week this time last year.
“Openreach has always been committed to doing our bit in rural Britain – delivering network upgrades in communities that are harder to reach and less densely populated. We intend to build a significant portion of our full-fibre network in these harder to reach areas of the UK and are announcing 227 locations today.
“Our ambition is to reach 15 million premises by mid-2020s if right investment conditions are in place. Currently, the biggest missing piece of this puzzle is getting an exemption from business rates on building fibre cables which is critical for any fibre builder’s long-term investment case.”
What is Full Fibre?
Full fibre, or Fibre To The Premises (FTTP), differs from the current fibre service offered under Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) or ADSL as it utilises a full-fibre connection from your home or business all the way back to the exchange. This allows for faster speeds, with lower latency, over the other technologies which route part or all of the traffic over copper wires.
To view the full list of market towns and villages included in this phase of the build, please visit – https://opnr.ch/200locationsp .
