£134m Ultrafast Boost for East Midlands
More locations to get Full Fibre, on top of 105 new rural places announced last month
Around 335,000 more East Midlands homes and businesses are set to benefit from a broadband boost in the region of £134m[1] thanks to Openreach – the UK’s largest broadband network provider.
People living and working in a number of towns and villages across Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire are all set to benefit from the company’s national upgrade plan, with the majority of premises in each area gaining access to the latest Ultrafast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband.
Work – in places like Chesterfield, Hinckley, Kettering, Mansfield, Melton Mowbray and Worksop - will take place between now and 2026, with the full list of locations and timescales published on Openreach’s website.
The news comes hot on the heels of a similar announcement last month, when 275,000 premises - in 105 mainly rural and harder to serve areas across the region - were also included in Openreach’s build plan.
Both announcements build on Openreach’s existing work in the region, where nearly 250,000 homes and businesses can already order ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband.
Following a competitive tender process, a number of partners – John Henry Group, Morrison Telecom Services (MTS),NMCN Telecoms and Telent - were chosen by Openreach to support the upgrades and will play a crucial role in building the new network to thousands of premises in these locations
Kasam Hussain, Openreach’s regional director for the East Midlands, said: “Nobody in the UK is building full fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach. We’re reaching more communities than ever before and our team of highly-skilled engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world.
“Just last month we announced 105 rural and hard to reach locations across the East Midlands were to benefit, so it’s great that we’re able to reveal another huge broadband boost for the region with these additional locations.
“The latest details and timescales are available on our website as the build planning progresses.”
Pat Carolan, Managing Director of Morrison Telecom Services, said: “The last eighteen months have highlighted the importance of keeping people connected and we recognise that we have a pivotal role to play in helping Openreach to deliver full fibre broadband to this region. We look forward to supporting Openreach’s commitment to delivering ultrafast connectivity to homes and businesses in the local community and the many employment, social, economic and environmental benefits that this will bring. Our role is to ensure that the new network is built efficiently, safely and without any compromise on quality.”
Ric Welsby, Managing Director of Telent Infrastructure Services, said; “We are very pleased to be supporting Openreach in the build of this ultrafast and ultra-reliable full fibre broadband network. The long-term contracts we have been awarded allow us to recruit the people we need to provide an excellent service to Openreach. We have many exciting roles to fill, I would encourage anyone who is interested in working on this important national infrastructure project to visit our website.”
Jonny Wilson, Programme Director at John Henry Group, said: “This is fantastic news for Openreach, the John Henry Group and ultimately the customer. At the John Henry Group, we are working very closely with Openreach to enable this build ambition in to a reality. Scaling this ambition will require investment in a number of key aspects, including new opportunities for an entry level demographic. The UK telecoms industry is only going to grow in the coming years, and for everyone here at the John Henry group, being part of this build commitment with Openreach is one we are thoroughly looking forward to.”
Robert Moyle, Managing Director for NMCN Telecoms, said: “nmcn are delighted to have been awarded the Mansfield cluster as part of the latest stage of Openreach’s Full Fibre rollout in the East Midlands. We look forward to continuing to deliver a crucial role in connecting thousands of customers in our locality and throughout the region to support the recovery from what has been a challenging 18 months for everyone.”
The company’s updated build plan will be fundamental to the UK Government achieving its target of delivering ‘gigabit capable’ broadband to 85 per cent of UK by 2025 and it follows an extended investment commitment by its parent, BT Group – which means Openreach will now build Full Fibre technology to a total of 25 million premises, including more than six million in the hardest-to-serve parts of the country by the end of 2026.
Openreach is already building Full Fibre faster, at lower cost and higher quality than anyone else in the UK, having made the technology available to more than 5 million homes and business so far.
Openreach plays an important role across the East Midlands region. More than 1,600 of our people live and work here. Recent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) highlighted the clear economic benefits of connecting everyone in the East Midlands to full fibre. It estimated this would create a £3.5 billion boost to the local economy.
This short video explains what Full Fibre technology is and you can find out more about our Fibre First programme, latest availability and local plans here.
[1] Investment figure based on an average build cost of £400 per premises
