14
June
2017
|
11:44
Europe/London

Size doesn't matter for Worcestershire villagers aiming to get ultrafast broadband!

Summary
Pensham Fields, Pensham near Pershore, is to become one of the smallest communities in UK to benefit from BT’s pioneering Community Fibre Partnerships programme.

A small group of residents in rural Worcestershire has become one of the smallest communities in the UK to benefit from an innovative partnership programme set up by BT to help even more people get high-speed broadband.

As a result, the four home-owners at Pensham Fields, near Pershore, will be able to access some of the fastest broadband speeds in the country.

They joined forces with Openreach – the local network business which is part of BT Group – after finding out their barn conversion homes, near Pensham, were not part of any current public or private sector superfast broadband roll-out plans.

The result is a co-funding deal with residents sharing the costs of the extensive engineering work with Openreach, as part of BT’s Community Fibre Partnerships programme.

The project is using Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology and is expected to be completed early next year. It includes Openreach engineers laying more than three kilometres of fibre optic cable.

The villagers will have a fibre broadband network capable of delivering download speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) and uploads of up to 220Mbps*.

Resident Paul Murphy said: “As professionals, at times working from home and with teenage children, we need high bandwidth services to meet our growing needs. We are therefore excited to be able to unleash the potential of a pure fibre service through our agreement with Openreach to provide high speed broadband services on a new all fibre network that will meet our broadband needs for decades to come.”

So far, more than 150 BT Community Fibre Partnerships projects around the UK have been completed, with nearly 300 contracts signed. More information is available from:www.communityfibre.bt.com

Steve Haines, managing director for Openreach, said: “Partnerships like this help us to bring high-speed connections to challenging areas that the private sector would have difficulty reaching alone.

“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 in the UK. That’s why we’re investing in hundreds of similar projects across the UK, working in partnership with business and residential communities to deliver faster speeds from a wide choice of competing internet service providers.

“I have no doubt that the residents of Pensham Fields will see real benefits thanks to the faster connectivity and variety of services we’re delivering.”

Ian Binks, BT’s regional manager for Worcestershire and the West Midlands, said: “It’s great to be able to work with even the smallest of communities to help them realise the benefits that ultrafast broadband can deliver. From family life involving streaming high definition and 4k TV through to homework and keeping connected with family and friends around the world to being able to work at home, fibre broadband brings benefits to all members of any community.”

Notes to Editors

*These are the top wholesale speeds available from BT’s local network business Openreach to all service providers; speeds offered by service providers may vary.

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Issued the BT regional press office. For more information please contact Emma Tennant on 0800 085 0660 or email: emma.tennant@bt.comTwitter: @EmmaTennantBT

All BT news releases can be read at: http://www.btplc.com/News

About BT

BT’s purpose is to use the power of communications to make a better world. It is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in 180 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband, TV and internet products and services; and converged fixed-mobile products and services. BT consists of six customer-facing lines of business: Consumer, EE, Business and Public Sector, Global Services, Wholesale and Ventures, and Openreach.

For the year ended 31 March 2017, BT Group’s reported revenue was £24,062m with reported profit before taxation of £2,354m.

British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.

For more information, visit www.btplc.com

About Openreach

Openreach is the UK’s leading digital infrastructure provider.

Its 32,000 employees are responsible for building and maintaining millions of miles of fibre and copper cables that connect every home and business in the UK to local telephone exchanges. Openreach operates and maintains this network to deliver a range of wholesale services for more than 580 retail providers, who in-turn provide telephony, broadband, TV and data services to more than 30 million consumer and business customers throughout the country.

Openreach is a highly regulated business, with more than 90 per cent of its revenues generated from services that are regulated by Ofcom. Any company can access its products under exactly the same prices, terms and conditions.

Over the last decade, Openreach has invested more than £10bn into its network and is currently building the UK’s largest fibre broadband footprint. This technology is available to more than 26 million homes and businesses, with tens of thousands more gaining access each week.

Openreach is a wholly owned and independently governed division of the BT Group. For the year ended 31 March 2017, it reported revenues of £5.1bn.

For more information, visit openreach.co.uk