Openreach this week announced it will roll out full fibre to 2,500 homes in Nottinghamshire, having received BDUK funding to assist with the process.
The news came days after the UK infrastructure provider shared details of its efforts to extend fibre availability in the Welsh capital Cardiff and talked up the availability of fibre in western Scotland.
Nottinghamshire Country Council has awarded Openreach a contract to carry out a third phase of work under the Better Broadband for Nottinghamshire (BBfN) scheme, which will see 2,500 homes and businesses in the Bassetlaw and Newark & Sherwood districts covered by full fibre networks.
Openreach said it will be able to offer speeds of up to 330Mbps to all 2,500 premises.
Phase three will cost £2.7 million (€3 million), with £1.3 million in funding coming from the council via the government’s BDUK programme and £1.4 million being invested by Openreach.
Openreach said it will commence planning and survey work shortly. The rollout will begin in spring 2019 and will take around six months.
“We’ve already reached close to 74,000 premises [in Nottinghamshire] through our work with the county council, and we’re looking forward to going even further with this new contract,” said Steve Henderson, Openreach’s regional director for next generation access.
In Wales, Openreach announced late last week that it has fibre-enabled four street cabinets in Cardiff’s Castle Quarter, an area popular with shoppers and tourists. Businesses in the area now have access to broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps, up from less than 20Mbps previously, it said.
The project was jointly funded by FOR Cardiff, a non-profit organisation working on improvements to Cardiff city centre, and Openreach; the former said it contributed £42,000, but Openreach did not provide a figure.
And in Scotland Openreach set about publicising the fact that more than 25,700 homes and businesses across North Ayrshire have access to fibre broadband as a result of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband rollout project.
Areas in North Ayrshire with fibre broadband access include Skelmorlie, Dalry, Kilwinning and Kilbirnie, with more to follow as work in the region continues, Openreach said.