Hertfordshire community signs deal to bring high-speed broadband to residents

A partnership between residents in Kings Copse, Hemel Hempstead, and Openreach, BT’s local network business, is to make high-speed fibre broadband available to 125 households in the community.

Openreach will install new fibre optic cabling and Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology for the project, which is benefitting from the UK Government’s Better Broadband Subsidy Scheme.

The faster speeds will be particularly welcomed by households wanting to connect several devices to the internet at the same time. Whether it’s downloading the latest box sets, Skyping friends and family, shopping or researching online, speedy access to the internet has never been more important.

The co-funded deal at Kings Copse has just been signed and is expected to see the first residents get the higher speeds by the end of November next year.

The Better Broadband Subsidy Scheme allows households with internet speeds of less than 2Mbps, who are not included in any current fibre broadband programme, to get funding for better broadband using any technology.

The cost of bringing fibre broadband technology to residents in the estate has been covered by the scheme and investment from Openreach.

Kings Copse resident Tom Brand, who led a local campaign for an upgrade, said: “Broadband speeds are more important now than ever before. Improving our internet speed is going to mean a massive improvement on our quality of life.

“I work from home twice a week and it will mean I can increase my productivity and send files quicker. In the evenings, my fiancé and I will be able to catch-up on many of the exciting TV shows we've not been able to watch. And it will also mean we can keep all our devices connected to our wi-fi network at once - currently we can only have one and even then it's very slow.

“Everyone in our development is counting down the days until the upgrade - we are extremely grateful to Openreach for working with us to find a solution, they've been terrific!"

Bill Murphy, BT’s managing director for next generation access, said: “It is very satisfying to work with proactive communities like Kings Copse to find a fibre broadband solution in more areas that fall outside the private sector’s commercial plans.

“We’re involved in many similar community fibre partnerships across East of England to bring faster internet access to even more homes and businesses, and no organisation is doing more than BT to roll out superfast fibre broadband to as many people as possible in the fastest possible time.”

Kim Mears,Openreach’s managing director for infrastructure delivery, said: “Getting faster speeds to communities in the final few percent of the UK is a top priority for Openreach and the people of Kings Copse are pioneering a new way to achieve this. We’re

bringing faster fibre internet access to even more homes and businesses. Openreach is committed to making fibre broadband as widely available as possible in the UK to allow families and businesses to do even more online.”

More than nine out of ten premises across the UK can access superfast broadband speeds. For more details on the roll-out visit

https://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/when-can-i-get-fibre.aspx

To find out how to help bring superfast broadband to your community visit

communityfibre.bt.com.