MP visits Openreach engineers upgrading Chichester
The Rt Hon Gillian Keegan MP has toured the Openreach exchange in Chichester, meeting the engineers who are busy building a new, ultrafast Full Fibre broadband network in the cathedral city.
Mrs Keegan was given a tour of the work, which is currently making faster and more reliable Full Fibre broadband available to homes and businesses in her Chichester constituency. She learned more about fibreoptics and how Full Fibre is future-proofing connections for decades to come.
She also tried her hand at the art of fibre splicing – where two ends of fibre optic glass cable no wider than a human hair are fused together. This delicate piece of engineering plays a vital role in Openreach’s Full Fibre network that’s already been made available to more than 150,000 properties across West Sussex – an investment of around £45 million[1].
Gillian Keegan MP, said: “I’m pleased to see the progress being made by Openreach to deliver Full Fibre across Chichester. It’s vital that local residents take advantage of this new technology as it becomes available as I know slow, outdated, or unreliable broadband is a concern for many constituents, particularly in our rural communities.
“This is a significant local investment and great news for people living and working here in Chichester and elsewhere in West Sussex.
”I look forward to even more progress being made so that all constituents can have the best access to digital services for employment, education and entertainment, as soon as possible."
The visit was hosted by Kieran Wines, Openreach’s partnership director for the South, who said: “We welcomed the opportunity to give Mrs Keegan a tour of our ultrafast network and explain more about the build. Our engineers work hard every day to keep communities connected, and it was great to be able to share the challenges and realities of delivering this technology.
“I would urge everyone in the local area to keep an eye on the build locally to see when full fibre is available to them. They can visit the Openreach fibre checker, which is regularly updated with our build progress and shows when full fibre is available in specific areas.
”Switching to full fibre is easy and may even be cheaper than your existing broadband package.”
Chichester was included in Openreach’s commercial investment announcement last month and work has already commenced. Nearby exchanges in Middleton-on-Sea and Pagham were also announced, and Bosham, Birdham, Bracklesham, Bognor Regis, Eastergate and Yapton have already been included in the company’s upgrade plans.
Full Fibre technology is up to 10[2] times faster than the average UK broadband connection and around five times more reliable than the old copper-based network it’s replacing. The Openreach network offers the UK’s biggest choice of Full Fibre broadband providers including the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen.
Residents will be able to enjoy a host of online services and entertainment such as seamless streaming, and smooth online gaming experiences. While businesses can operate with certainty that their broadband will support all their day-to-day, business critical tasks such as video calls, banking and customer interaction via social media platforms.
Openreach recently passed more than 11.5 million premises across the UK, including around 3.7 million in the hardest to reach ‘final third’ of the country.
And while Openreach continues to build at pace, more than three million homes and businesses have taken up an ultrafast service over the Openreach network – a healthy take up rate of more than 30 per cent.
Ultimately, the Company plans to build Full Fibre to 25 million homes and businesses nationwide by December 2026.
[1] Investment figure based on an average build cost of £300 per premises
[2] Median averages more accurately reflect the experience of consumers, as average performance is not distorted by a comparatively small number of very fast connections. This approach is in line with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP)’s guidance on broadband speed claims
