Broadband boost for the Tyne Valley as new technology arrives ultrafast
Around 1,500 homes and businesses in rural villages in the Tyne Valley can now access ultra-reliable full fibre broadband, just months after Openreach asked local people to join their Fibre Community Partnership (FCP) programme.
Back in April 2024 the company encouraged people living and working in Bardon Mill, Ovington, Riding Mill and Wark, to apply for free Government broadband vouchers, which can be used to help secure faster broadband speeds and greater reliability.
Using the vouchers – which don’t cost residents anything, has enabled Openreach to work with the local community to build a customised, co-funded full fibre network.
Louise Thompson, Openreach’s Regional Engagement manager, said: “Our complex engineering teams have worked so hard to bring this new technology to these villages – it usually takes around 12-18 months from a Fibre Community Partnership Programme being agreed to the first premises ‘going live’ but this has been turned round in less than nine months, which is a huge achievement.
“This year the team will be focusing on voucher funded build in Allendale, Corbridge and Haltwhistle, with work already well underway.
“We’re investing £15 billion to build full fibre broadband to 25 million homes – and more than six million of those will be in the toughest third of the UK – but we can’t upgrade the whole country alone. This latest support from government is a vital part of that process.”
Openreach has also announced plans to build the new network in several towns and villages in the surrounding area including Bellingham, Corbridge, Haydon Bridge, Hexham, Otterburn, Prudhoe and Stocksfield and Wylam, as part of its commercial build plans.
Funding through the Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and the deployment of new innovative engineering techniques, means thousands more remote, rural and coastal communities are now within reach of the ultrafast technology.
As part of the funding conditions residents are asked to commit to ordering a full fibre service from a provider of their choice for at least 12 months once the new network is available and confirm that they are connected.
Full fibre technology provides more reliable, resilient and future-proof connectivity; meaning fewer faults; more predictable, consistent speeds and enough capacity to easily meet growing data demands. It's also future-proof, which means it will serve generations to come and won’t need to be upgraded for decades.
Fibre optics - strands of glass around one-tenth the thickness of a human hair - transmit data using light signals. Fibre is smaller, lighter and more durable than copper cabling and less vulnerable to damage. This short video explains what full fibre technology is and there’s more info here.
