Thousands across Wigan missing out on faster broadband

People living and working in Wigan are being encouraged to find out more about Full Fibre broadband – as the latest figures show that Openreach’s new network – which offers the UK’s biggest choice of broadband providers – is now available to around 100,000 homes and businesses. A local investment of around £30million. [1]

However, only a quarter of those people who can upgrade to Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband have done so – with thousands still missing out on the faster, more reliable services.

Robert Thorburn, Openreach’s regional director for the North West, said: “Fast and reliable full fibre broadband gives households and businesses a boost and it can have a huge impact on people’s daily lives.

”Switching is easy and may even be cheaper than your existing broadband package but it’s important to remember that upgrades don’t happen automatically. People need to contact, and place orders through, their broadband service provider to take advantage.

“Our engineering build continues across Wigan and we’re determined to deliver a great service to local residents, helping people to work from home easily and build connections and opportunities in their communities.”

Gemma Crompton, CEO of The Hamlet in Wigan, can vouch for the benefits that full fibre brings. She runs an incredible learning centre in Ashton-In-Makerfield, where young people with additional needs can go to learn and develop life skills.

She said: “When we moved onto this site we had so many great ideas but then discovered we had really slow broadband, which not only limited what we could do but also caused a lot of frustration for our young people.

“Thankfully, upgrading to full fibre has changed everything – we now have no restrictions to what we achieve from an IT perspective. From simple things like taking card payments to online learning, as well as our more creative online activities like graphic design and printing. We even offer conferencing and meeting room facilities.

“None of this could have been achieved without the upgrade.”

As well as being faster, Full Fibre broadband provides more reliable, resilient and future-proof connectivity, with fewer faults; more predictable, consistent speeds; and enough capacity to use multiple devices at once.

It supports 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.

Packages from a wide range of broadband providers are increasingly competitively priced, meaning people may pay similar, or even less, per month than their current bill for a much-improved service.

Once somebody places an order with a service provider, an Openreach engineer will visit on an agreed day. They’ll run a new fibre optical cable from underground or a nearby pole to a small junction box on the outside wall of the premises. A smaller cable goes through the outside wall to an inside unit - which needs to be near a double electricity socket. Before they leave, the engineer will test the connection to make sure it’s up and running.

Openreach has now announced plans to invest in Full Fibre broadband for the majority of premises in every exchange in the Wigan local authority area. It’s part of the company’s plans to reach 25 million UK homes and businesses by the end of 2026.

Local people can visit the Openreach fibre checker, which is regularly updated with build progress and shows when full fibre is available in specific areas.

Notes to editors

Build information included in this news release reflects our plans at the time of publication. Building a new broadband network across the UK is a huge and complex national engineering programme, so please be aware some changes may occur where we encounter unforeseen obstacles.

[1] Investment figure based on an average build cost of £300 per premises