10
October
2017
|
15:18
Europe/Amsterdam

Fibre Fox hoping for a fantastic reception in Leicestershire

Summary
Competition launched to name Superfast Leicestershire’s new broadband hero

A new addition to the Superfast Leicestershire broadband team is being unveiled this week, and already there’s a cunning plan in place that needs your help.

‘Fibre Fox’ is all bright eyed and bushy tailed about being the new public face of Leicestershire County Council’s broadband partnership with BT - but he needs a name!

So people across Leicestershire are being encouraged to take part in a competition, running through to the end of October, to find a catchy name for Leicestershire’s new broadband hero.

Council leader, Nick Rushton, said: “We’re always looking for new ways of engaging with our communities and we thought it would be fun to try something a little more creative to help promote fibre broadband. We’re hoping that having an easily-identifiable mascot for our work with BT will get more people involved, and encourage them to find out more about how they can benefit.

“Our Superfast Leicestershire programme has been a real success so far, reaching more than 60,000 homes and businesses across the county. We’re now concentrating on some of the hardest to access areas, where making fibre broadband available is often a significant engineering challenge. But we’re determined to reach as many people as possible and our work continues at quite a pace.”

Superfast Leicestershire remains on course to make superfast broadband available to more than 74,000 premises across the county and city by the end of 2018.

Steve Henderson, Openreach’s regional director for next generation access, said: “Our work across Leicestershire has been a huge success so far, but we know there is more to do. As well as making the technology available to as many people as possible, we also have an important role to play in raising awareness of how to get fibre broadband, and the benefits of it. Fibre Fox will be a familiar face for Superfast Leicestershire going forward and that can only be a good thing.”

Fibre Fox has joined the team to help spread the word about the benefits of fibre broadband. It’s important for people across Leicestershire and Leicester city to check to see if they can connect, as upgrades do not happen automatically.

A fibre broadband connection at home means everyone in the house can be online at the same time without losing speed or buffering – whether they’re gaming, catching up on their favourite programmes through streaming, downloading music or posting to social media.

For businesses, superfast broadband enables them to maximise growth and expand their customer base, with faster upload and download speeds, better connectivity and more flexible ways of working.

Work carried out as part of the Superfast Leicestershire programme is in addition to BT’s commercial rollout in the county that has already made fibre broadband available to around 300,000 properties.

All of the engineering work is being carried out by Openreach, who are responsible for Britain’s largest phone and broadband network, meaning people with access to the fibre network can choose from a range of internet providers.

To submit your ideas for a name for Fibre Fox, email broadband@leics.gov.uk or Tweet your suggestions @LeicsCountyHall using the hashtag #FibreFox by 6th November.

For more information about Superfast Leicestershire visit www.superfastleicestershire.org.uk or look out for #SuperfastLeics on Twitter.

ENDS