Openreach brings Full Fibre to rural East Lothian village
Homes and businesses in one of East Lothian’s most rural communities are now able to upgrade to ultrafast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband.
More than 53 per cent of properties throughout East Lothian have access to Openreach’s Full Fibre network – from its biggest towns to its hardest to reach villages – and that figure continues to grow.
While the rollout is expected to reach more properties in towns like Haddington and Musselburgh in the coming months, Openreach is also making sure that those in rural areas can access some of the fastest, most reliable broadband in the UK.
A new ultrafast broadband network has been built in the village of East Saltoun after locals used the UK Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme, alongside a contribution from Openreach, to help fund the area’s digital transformation.
Robin Grenfell, a local resident and community lead for the project, has already made the switch to full fibre.
“The benefits of fibre are well documented,” he said. “It’s becoming a huge part of connecting with families, workplaces and schools. For communities not to be left behind, it’s something that has to happen. It means they can be ready for the future – and even ready for the present.”
Robin, who led the community effort to bring Full Fibre to East Saltoun and kept residents updated on progress, added: “Before, speed varied across the village. The maximum, closest to the exchange, was around 20-25Mbps, but it could drop to single digit speeds in other parts of the village. So the vast majority of people here were eager for faster speeds to facilitate modern living.”
The upgrade means that residents in East Saltoun are among the 28,000 households and businesses in East Lothian who now have access to Openreach’s fibre network.
Robert Thorburn, Openreach’s Partnership Director for Scotland, said: “We’re passionate about delivering Full Fibre to Scotland’s rural communities, and it’s great that residents in East Saltoun are now able to upgrade and enjoy the benefits of ultrafast broadband.
“Full Fibre can have a huge impact on people’s lives and boosts the economy but upgrades aren’t automatic. People need to place an order with their chosen providers to get connected and we’ll do the rest. Our network offers the widest choice of providers such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen – which means people have lots of choice and can get a great deal.
“Even if you already have a decent enough service, it’s worth checking if you can upgrade, because Full Fibre is the future, and it provides the best broadband experience at great value for money. There’ll be no more worrying that your video call might freeze, or your files are failing to upload when everyone’s at home competing for bandwidth at the same time.”
Full Fibre broadband provides more reliable, resilient and future-proof connectivity; with fewer faults; more predictable, consistent speeds and enough capacity to easily meet growing data demands.
