Broadband boost for Brixham with £4m infrastructure investment
Full speed ahead for ultrafast Full Fibre broadband in Brixham as local MP meets engineers building new broadband network in the town - more than half of homes and businesses in Brixham can now order the new service with a provider of their choice
Totnes MP Anthony Mangnall met engineers working in Brixham to learn about the new infrastructure being built by Openreach in the town to deliver ultrafast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband to thousands of homes and businesses with an investment worth £4 million. The work is part of the company’s £15 billion investment in upgrading the UK’s largest broadband network.
He was given a socially distanced tour of the work, which involves engineers overlaying copper cables with fibre optic cables which run via a new telecoms spine from the Openreach parent exchange in Paignton, all the way to homes and businesses throughout the town. These new cables will bring greater reliability and faster speeds and will future-proof the network in the local area for decades to come.
The build has already reached more than 5,000 homes and businesses in the busy port town, which means those customers can already upgrade to better broadband through a provider of their choice.
Connie Dixon, Openreach’s Regional Director for the South West, said: “Nobody in the UK is building Full Fibre broadband faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach. We’re reaching more communities – in rural, urban and coastal areas - than ever and our team of highly skilled engineers and build partners are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world.
“It’s great that so many homes and businesses in the area and across Brixham can now access ultrafast, Full Fibre broadband and I’d encourage people to check what’s available at their address using the postcode checker on our website, openreach.com. Once you’ve put in your address and seen what’s available, the checker will show you dozens of providers which use our network and are offering services so you can choose the provider to best suit your needs”.
Anthony Mangnall said, “Openreach has committed to rolling out ultrafast, full fibre to South Devon, especially to ‘hard-to-reach areas’. I joined the brilliant local engineers who are making this ambition a reality. With more people than ever working from home and flexible working becoming more common place it is essential to ensure that we have the telecommunications infrastructure in place to allow this to happen. I am delighted that Openreach are making this possible and are committed to connecting thousands more homes by 2026. I will continue to work with them and their local team to help as many homes and families connect to the fastest internet possible.”
Openreach has made Full Fibre technology available to more than 5 million homes and business across the UK so far including 21 per cent of homes and businesses in the Totnes constituency. The company is continuing work to improve connectivity throughout South Devon and has announced plans to reach a number of the “hardest to serve” locations in the area including Kingsbridge, Dartmouth, Salcombe and Totnes, alongside the build in the neighbouring Torbay constituency where Openreach is upgrading exchanges at Paignton, St Marychurch, Torquay, Chelston and Shiphay Collaton.
The company plays an important role across the South West region with more than 3,400 employees living and working here. Recent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) highlighted the clear economic benefits of connecting everyone in the South West to Full Fibre. It estimated this would create a £4.3 billion boost to the local economy. Openreach has also invested heavily in training in recent years, with one of its dedicated training centres situated in nearby Exeter.
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.
Notes to Editors
- £15bn – total investment in Openreach’s Full Fibre build programme
- 25m – premises Openreach expects to build to by December 2026, of which:
- 4m – premises Openreach will build to each year at its peak
- 2m – premises Openreach built to during FY 20/21 (up from 1m in 19/20).
- 1m – customer connections live already
- Up to 7,000 new trainee engineering jobs to be created within Openreach and partners in the supply chain because of increasing build from 20 to 25m by December 2026
- 9,000 apprenticeship roles created and filled by Openreach since 2017/18
- With download speeds of 1 Gbps, it’s up to 10 times faster than the average home broadband connection. That means faster game downloads, better quality video calls and higher resolution movie streaming.
- You can also use multiple devices at once without experiencing slowdown – so more people in your household can get online at once. Even if the rest of your family are making video calls, streaming box sets or gaming online, all at the same time – you won’t experience stuttering, buffering or dropouts.
- Full fibre is also less affected by peak time congestion – so you can enjoy your Saturday night blockbuster in 4K without the dreaded buffering screen.
- Surf, shop, game, play, click, teach, talk, work, create, learn, buy, sell, watch and do business without skipping a beat or slowing down.
