Cheers! award winning East Sussex pub helps villagers get superfast broadband
An East Sussex pub, which has been named the best pub in Great Britain, is looking forward to a superfast future.
The Bull in Ditchling, Lewes - current holder of the Great British Pub of the Year award1 - will get access to high-speed fibre broadband next month.
But the owner of the pub, Dominic Worrall, is not only looking forward to the technology boosting his business. He has also agreed to offer the Bull’s car park as the location for a fibre broadband cabinet, so more than 300 homes and businesses in the village will also get the new broadband technology.
Dominic Worrall said: “Having been approached by the residents of Ditchling, I was delighted to offer some land to Openreach as we understood their expansion plans had been complicated as there wasn't a suitable public site in the village. I’m thrilled that this will now benefit the local school, businesses and home owners to operate and connect at speeds that a modern and progressive village like Ditchling needs. It’s a true reflection of how a community can work together.”
Dave Axam, chairman of BT’s South East regional board, said: “It’s great to be able to work with communities like Ditchling to find a high-speed broadband solution. More than 92 per cent of the UK can access superfast speeds today, and we’re committed to making fibre broadband as widely available as possible. That’s why we’re investing in hundreds of similar projects across the UK, working in partnership with business and residential communities to make faster speeds available from a wide choice of competing internet service providers.”
Openreach, the local network business, which is part of BT Group, has installed a new fibre optic cabinet equipped with the latest Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology. Work is ongoing and access to the fibre broadband technology for local residents is scheduled for mid-July. High-speed fibre broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps will be available for the first time from a wide range of broadband service providers.
