Middlesbrough set for £5.5 million broadband boost
More than 18,500 homes and businesses in Middlesbrough are set to get access to full fibre, thanks to Openreach.
The town joins more than fifteen other towns and villages in the Tees Valley already included in Openreach’s commercial build plans.
Earlier today, Openreach announced it had reached the halfway point of its nationwide plan to reach 25 million premises with its full fibre broadband network by the end of 2026.
It also revealed 142 locations – including Middlesbrough – where it will deliver full fibre to around 1.4 million homes and businesses, including in some of the hardest to reach, most rural communities.
Openreach is building full fibre faster and further than any other UK provider – reaching around 60k new premises every week. That means passing another home or business with ultrafast, gigabit-capable broadband every ten seconds.
Openreach intends to keep building after it reaches its initial 25 million target, reaching up to 30 million premises with Full Fibre by the end of 2030.
Clive Selley, CEO, Openreach, said: “This is a national infrastructure project that’s a genuine success story. We’re delivering engineering on an epic scale, on time and on budget – and that’s thanks to a supportive policy environment which has led to huge investment and competition throughout the UK’s telecoms sector.
“From a standing start just a few years ago, we’ve now made this life-changing technology available to 12.5 million premises and counting and we’re building faster than any operator I’m aware of in Europe.
“Our build rate is still accelerating and it’ll take us half the time to reach our next 12.5 million. But we won’t be stopping there. Ultimately, we’ll reach up to 30 million premises by the end of the decade - unlocking a raft of economic and social benefits by supporting new models of commerce, healthcare and public services.”
Meeting the demands of modern life
More than four million homes and businesses have already connected to the new network and demand continues to rise – with the company growing its Full Fibre base by more than 30k new orders every week.
Roughly 1.8 million Terabytes[1] of data is used on the Openreach network each week – equivalent to every single person in the country watching two full HD movies every day – and data consumption is rising every single year.
Powering up public services
Openreach has already made Full Fibre available to over 13,400 medical facilities – including hospitals, GP surgeries and pharmacies across the country, as well as 8,300 care and nursing homes.
The build is also connecting thousands of educational facilities such as schools, universities and children’s nurseries & creches, improving online learning facilities for students nationally.
Helping to tackle social challenges
The network transformation could also play a vital role in helping to tackle a range of social challenges - with full fibre reaching 2,500 banks and financial buildings, 1,500 libraries, art centres and museums, as well as 1,200 emergency services buildings including coastguard and mountain rescue.
Growing the UK economy
Openreach’s network will also help to grow the UK economy by connecting people and businesses.
The Full Fibre transformation could give a £72bn boost to the output of the UK economy in 2030, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr).This is the equivalent of 294,960 new SMEs being created across the country or adding 25 new businesses in every local council in the UK.
For the most personalised view of an individual home or business, Openreach recommends using its online postcode checker where people can find out the specific Openreach broadband connectivity available at their address.
[1] A one Terabyte hard drive can hold up to 500 hours of high-definition 1080p video — that’s just over 20 whole days!
