More than 80,000 additional homes and businesses in Wales are set to benefit from a major broadband boost thanks to a £25m investment by Openreach – the UK’s largest digital network provider, used by the likes of BT, Sky and TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen.
When work is finished, people living and working in a further 9 communities across South Wales will be able to contact their broadband provider and upgrade to full fibre broadband, with the new network being built to the majority of premises in: Sketty, Gowerton, Ravenhill, Culverhouse, Llanrumney, Llanedeyrn, Cwmbran, Risca and Maindee.
This is a further boost for Ultrafast broadband across Wales as it follows several key announcements last year outlining plans that more than half a million homes and businesses would be getting access to Openreach’s new network, including hundreds of thousands in rural and harder to serve areas.
Welsh Government Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters MS said:
“The impact of fast, affordable broadband for homes and businesses across Wales cannot be underestimated, supporting a thriving and sustainable vision for our future. Openreach is helping to realise faster speeds, greater access and better support for places that have previously found it harder to connect.”
“This news is especially important at the moment with so many people working from home where a reliable broadband connection is vital”.
Connie Dixon, Openreach’s regional director for Wales, said:
“Nobody in Wales or the UK is building full fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach. We’re reaching more communities than ever and our team of highly-skilled local engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in Europe.”
“In 2021 our engineers built around 770 metres of new broadband cables every minute – making Ultrafast broadband available to another home every 13 seconds. We’ve already reached six million homes and businesses across the UK with ultrafast full fibre technology including more than 425,000 in Wales but we know there’s more to do and we’re committed to doing it.”
Full fibre broadband is up to ten times faster than the average home broadband connection and around five times more reliable than the traditional copper-based network, providing more predictable, consistent speeds.
Across Wales more than 100,000 homes and businesses have already ordered a full fibre service from a range of retail service providers using the Openreach network. But this means that thousands more could be benefiting from some of the fastest, most reliable broadband connections in Europe and have yet to upgrade.
Recent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) highlighted the clear economic benefits of connecting everyone in Wales to full fibre. It estimated this would create a £2 billion boost to the Welsh economy.
Openreach engineers have been working hard to make the technology available to as many people as possible throughout the UK and the company’s plans are fundamental to the UK Government achieving its target of delivering ‘gigabit capable’ broadband to 85 per cent of UK by 2025. The company will invest billions of pounds to reach a total of 25 million premises by the end of December 2026, including more than six million in the hardest-to-serve parts of the country defined by industry regulator Ofcom.
Openreach employs around 2,500 and you can find out more about our Fibre First programme, latest availability and local plans here.
