Openreach has outlined plans to make ultra-reliable and gigabit-capable full fibre broadband available to homes and businesses in Nantwich and other Cheshire towns.
Nantwich, Hartford, Northwich, Sandbach, Greenbank, Winnington and Barnton will be upgraded by Openreach, without taxpayer subsidy.
It’s hoped having access to some of the fastest broadband speeds in Europe will boost their post-Covid economic recovery, says the company.
Work is expected to start within 12-18 months, although due to the size of the build, some places will see work continue into 2024.
It is part of a massive £12 billion investment, which will see Openreach’s ambition to build ‘Full Fibre’ infrastructure to 20 million premises throughout the UK by the mid-to-late 2020s.
Robert Thorburn, Openreach’s Partnership Director in the North of England, said: “We’ve already upgraded hundreds of thousands of homes and business across the North West to full fibre.
“As well as keeping the existing network running throughout the Covid crisis, our engineers have safely and with social distancing in place, continued building the new infrastructure to make sure that as lockdown restrictions ease, our network is there to support families, businesses and the economic recovery.
“I’d encourage everyone to check if they can switch to the new technology, and if you can, get in touch with your broadband provider to find out more about the many benefits.
“Full fibre is more reliable and more resilient meaning fewer faults and more predictable, consistent speeds.
“It is also ‘future-proof’ to easily meet the growing data demands of future technologies.”
It’s believed 54,000 people in the region could be brought back into the workforce through enhanced connectivity.
This could include roles in small businesses and entrepreneurs – as well as allowing thousands more people to work remotely by unlocking smarter ways of working, better public services and greater opportunities for the next-generation of home-grown businesses.
Openreach has built Full Fibre technology to over three million premises across the UK – including over a quarter in the final third of the country.
More than 120,000 homes and businesses have also signed up to Openreach’s Community Fibre Partnership CFP programme.
A CFP enables the company to work with a local community to build a customised co-funded solution and bring fibre broadband to areas not included in any existing private or publicly subsidised upgrade schemes.
The company is publishing a list of 251 locations in the final third where it will build the new network over the next three years.
To view the full list of market towns and villages included in the announcement, visit https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/
People interested in seeing whether they can upgrade their broadband can see what’s available in their area by entering their postcode into our online fibre checker.
Would like rural Crewe to have better broadband we have fibre and still only get 10mgb
Nice to see these places having it but have we forgotten and Cheadle Staffordshire and Stoke in trent
will it be 1,000mbs that is what BARN does