Seven-year project to bring high speed broadband to more of Cumbria is complete A seven-year project to bring superfast broadband to more than 127,000 homes and businesses in Cumbria has now been completed. Connecting Cumbria, a project run in partnership between Cumbria County Council and Openreach, has been an ambitious scheme to deliver high speed broadband internet connections to communities across Cumbria. The scheme has helped to ensure nearly 95 per cent of all properties in the county can now access higher speed internet connections, of at least 24mbps. Throughout the lifetime of the project, Openreach engineers have put in place 107 exchanges, built roughly 1,000 fibre structures, erected hundreds of new telegraph poles and laid thousands of kilometres of underground fibre optic cables.
OPENREACH is creating 130 new engineering jobs across the region. The digital infrastructure company says the recruitment will enable it to continue improving service levels on existing networks and connect more customers to full-fibre broadband. UK-wide, over 5,300 engineering roles will be created this year – both within Openreach’s own service and network build divisions and in its supply chain. The firm aims to service 20 million homes and businesses with its full-fibre broadband programme by the mid-to-late 2020s. Work is currently underway at dozens of locations across Yorkshire and the Humber, including parts of the Bradford district and in Cross Hills. Openreach has also committed to upgrading all its 27,000 vehicles to electric by 2030.
Rural fibre being installed. OPENREACH is asking residents in three areas of Craven to get behind a bid to bring ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband to their homes and businesses. The company is urging people in Settle, Farnhill and Broughton to consider pooling Gigabit broadband vouchers available from the Government to help build a new, gigabit-capable network, where fibre is run directly from the exchange all the way to each property. Residents who do not already have access to a 100Mbps broadband service can check if they qualify and pledge their voucher on the ‘Connect My Community’ website. Openreach says utilising the vouchers enables it to work with communities to build a customised, co-funded network and bring full fibre broadband to areas not included in any existing private or publicly subsidised upgrade schemes.
Rural fibre being installed. OPENREACH is asking residents in three areas of Craven to get behind a bid to bring ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband to their homes and businesses. The company is urging people in Farnhill, Settle and Broughton to consider pooling Gigabit broadband vouchers available from the Government to help build a new, gigabit-capable network, where fibre is run directly from the exchange all the way to each property. Residents who do not already have access to a 100Mbps broadband service can check if they qualify and pledge their voucher on the ‘Connect My Community’ website. Openreach says utilising the vouchers enables it to work with communities to build a customised, co-funded network and bring full fibre broadband to areas not included in any existing private or publicly subsidised upgrade schemes.
Connecting Cumbria broadband project completed
The final phase of rolling out fibre-based broadband across Cumbria has been completed today.
The village of Near Sawrey, the home of Beatrix Potter’s former farm Hill Top, was the last community to ‘go live’ as part of the Connecting Cumbria project.
The scheme has seen Cumbria County Council work closely with Openreach to make fibre-based broadband widely available across Cumbria.
Seventy-six homes and businesses in the village, including Hill Top, which is run as a visitor attraction by the National Trust, can now access some of the fastest broadband speeds in the UK.