South West Bedfordshire MP gets to grips with Openreach broadband build

Andrew Selous MP recently met up with some of the Openreach engineers that are building a new Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband network across Bedfordshire.

He was given a tour of the build, which is currently making faster and more reliable ‘full fibre’ broadband available to homes and businesses in his South West Bedfordshire constituency.

Following a quick visit to Whipsnade, the MP spent time at Dunstable telephone exchange to see the Openreach Full Fibre network in action. There, he talked to local engineers who are delivering this game changing technology to local communities.

The MP also got to try his 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 reached more than 100,000 properties across Bedfordshire – an investment of £30 million.

Andrew Selous MP, said: “I’m pleased to see the progress being made by Openreach to deliver full fibre across my constituency and the rest of the region. It’s vital that local people take advantage of this new technology as it becomes available.

“This is a significant local investment and great news for people living and working here in Bedfordshire – in both our urban and rural communities.

“I look forward to even more progress being made so that all of my 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 Regional Director in the East, who said: “We welcomed the opportunity to give Andrew 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.”

Full Fibre technology is up to 16 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 has plans to build Full Fibre to 25 million homes and businesses nationwide by December 2026.