'Ultra-fast' broadband boost for 25,000 premises across 13 areas in Northamptonshire...is your community included?

A telecommunications company has announced they will build "ultra-fast, ultra-reliable' full fibre broadband to around 25,000 homes and businesses in Northamptonshire.

This is part of Openreach s plan to introduce the improved broadband to at least three million premises in some of the UK's hardest to serve communities. This will mean that fewer homes and businesses will require taxpayer subsidies to upgrade.

Openreach’s regional director for the East Midlands, Kasam Hussain, said: “Building a new Ultrafast broadband network across the East Midlands is a massive challenge and some parts of the region will inevitably require public funding.

"But our expanded build plan means taxpayer subsidies can be limited to only the hardest to connect homes and businesses and, with investments from other network builders, we’d hope to see that shrink further."

A total of 13 exchanges across Northamptonshire are being upgraded - these locations include: Blisworth, Bozeat, Brackley, Braunston, Brigstock, Byfield, Crick, Hackleton, Long Buckby, Oundle, Thrapston, Weedon and Yardley Gobion.

Openreach's 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.

Mr Hussain continued: “This is a hugely complex, nationwide engineering project. It will help level-up the UK because the impact of full fibre broadband stretches from increased economic prosperity and international competitiveness, to higher employment and environmental benefits.

"We’re also delighted to continue bucking the national trend by creating more jobs in the region, with apprentices joining in their droves to start their careers as engineers."

Openreach created 1,000 new job roles in 2021 on top of the 2,500 that were announced in December 20 - of which, 140 were in the East Midlands. This means that, by the end of 2021, the company will have created and filled more than 9,000 apprenticeship roles since 2017.

With download speeds of 1 Gbps, full fibre is up to 10 times faster than the average home broadband connection, which means faster game downloads, better quality video calls and higher resolution movie streaming.

According to Openreach, full fibre is less affected by peak time congestion and users will be able to operate multiple devices at once without experiencing poor connections.

This short video explains what full fibre technology is and you can find out more about Openreach's Fibre First programme, latest availability and local plans on their website.