Around 180,000 more Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire homes and businesses are set to benefit from a broadband boost in the region of £72m thanks to Openreach – the UK’s largest broadband network provider.
People living and working a number of locations – including Chesterfield, Dronfield, Ilkeston, Mansfield, Shirebrook and Worksop – are all set to benefit from the company’s national upgrade plan, with the majority of premises in each area gaining access to the latest Ultrafast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband.
Work will take place between now and 2026 and the full list of locations and timescales published on Openreach’s website.
The news comes hot on the heels of a similar announcement last month, when 275,000 premises – in 105 mainly rural and harder to serve areas across the East Midlands – were also included in Openreach’s build plan.
Both announcements build on Openreach’s existing work in the region, where nearly 250,000 homes and businesses can already order ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband.
Morrison Telecom Services and a number of partners will be playing a crucial role in building the new network to thousands of premises in these locations.
Kasam Hussain, Openreach’s regional director for the East Midlands, said: “Nobody in the UK is building full fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach. We’re reaching more communities than ever before and our team of highly-skilled engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world.
“Just last month we announced 105 rural and hard to reach locations across the East Midlands were to benefit, so it’s great that we’re able to reveal another huge broadband boost for the region with these additional locations.
“The latest details and timescales are available on our website as the build planning progresses.”
Fast, high-quality, low cost broadband
The company’s updated build plan will be fundamental to the UK Government achieving its target of delivering ‘gigabit capable’ broadband to 85 per cent of the UK by 2025 and it follows an extended investment commitment by its parent, BT Group – which means Openreach will now build Full Fibre technology to a total of 25 million premises, including more than six million in the hardest-to-serve parts of the country by the end of 2026.
Openreach is already building Full Fibre faster, at lower cost and higher quality than anyone else in the UK, having made the technology available to more than 5 million homes and business so far.
Openreach plays an important role across the East Midlands region. More than 1,600 of our people live and work here. Recent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) highlighted the clear economic benefits of connecting everyone in the East Midlands to full fibre. It estimated this would create a £3.5 billion boost to the local economy.
This short video explains what Full Fibre technology is and you can find out more about our Fibre First programme, latest availability and local plans here.
