£51m investment brings major broadband boost
Thousands more homes and businesses in County Durham are set to get a major broadband boost thanks to a £51m investment project.
Openreach – the UK’s largest digital network provider, used by the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen – is upgrading to offer full fibre broadband in 21 areas – including Durham City,
Peterlee, Easington, Fence Houses, Seaham and Hetton le Hole.
The project will add 170,000 people to the 152,000 homes and businesses in the region which now have access full fibre on the Openreach network.
Robert Thorburn, Open reach’s regional director for the North, said: “Nobody in the UK is building full fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach. We’re installing around 800 metres of cable every minute, with our teams of engineers working alongside our build partners to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available.
“We’ve already reached more than seven million homes and businesses across the UK with ultrafast full fibre technology but we know there’s more to do and we’re committed to doing it.”
Full fibre broadband is up to ten times faster than the average home broadband connection and around five times more reliable than the traditional copper-based network, providing more predictable, consistent speeds.
Openreach say that, across the North East, around 42,000 homes and businesses have already ordered a full fibre service from a range of retail service providers.
Recent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimated full fibre broadband would create a £1.7bn boost to the local economy.