Diamond-edged cutters help villages get broadband

Openreach has started to make 1Gbps full-fibre broadband available to some of the UK’S remotest villages and small towns, using new methods to lay cables in difficult terrain.

For the first time it’s using a diamond cutter to dig trenches (pictured). This is a giant rotating circular blade embedded with diamonds at the edge, making it sharp enough to slice through carriageways and footways. It leaves a neat channel into which fibre-optic cables can be laid.

The specialist equipment can install 700 metres of cables in a day, which is 20 times faster than traditional excavation methods. It’s also using a Georipper, a powerful digging tool that cuts narrow trenches across soft ground such as fields.

In addition, Openreach has installed remote fibre nodes into existing roadside cabinets to ‘piggyback’ on the existing network, greatly extending the number of premises that can be connected via full-fibre cables.

The work is part of a plan to bring full-fibre to 50,000 premises in 13 villages. Research from Thinkbroadband ( www. thinkbroadband.com) shows that the project, which began in October, has already provided full-fibre residents in Kentford in west Suffolk, and West Calder in Lothian.

Work appears to have started in Cranfield, Flockton, Lundin Links, Mickle Trafford, Okehampton, Seal and Tarporley. The remaining four areas due to get full-fibre are Hesketh Bank, Lingfield, Ottery St Mary and Parbold.

Openreach said the locations were chosen to represent a broad number of areas in the UK. It hopes to connect more than half of customers by the end of March 2020.

The company added that the trials will help it work out the “technical challenges” it faces in delivering broadband to rural areas throughout the country. Its target is to reach four million premises by March 2021, and then 15 million by around 2025.