£60m Boost in South Yorkshire for ultrafast full fibre broadband

Around 150,000 more homes and businesses across South Yorkshire are set to benefit from a broadband boost in the region of £60m[1] thanks to Openreach – the UK’s largest broadband network provider.

People living and working in locations including Broomhill, Ecclesfield, Rotherham and Wombwell are set to benefit from the company’s national upgrade plan, with the majority of premises in each area gaining access to the latest Full Fibre broadband.

Work will take place between now and 2026, and more details of the full list of locations and timescales are published on Openreach’s website

The announcement builds on Openreach’s existing work across Yorkshire and the Humber, where around 350,000 homes and businesses can already order ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband.

Telent Infrastructure Services, was chosen by Openreach to support the upgrades across South Yorkshire and will play a crucial role in building the new network to thousands of premises in these locations

Robert Thorburn, Openreach’s regional director for the North, said: “Nobody in 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 engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world.

“Just last month we announced dozens of rural and hard to reach locations across Yorkshire and the Humber were to benefit, so it’s great that we’re able to reveal another huge broadband boost for the region with these additional locations.

“The latest details and timescales are available on our website as the build planning progresses.”

Ric Welsby, Managing Director of Telent Infrastructure Services, said; “We are very pleased to be supporting Openreach in the build of this ultrafast and ultra-reliable full fibre broadband network. The long-term contracts we have been awarded allow us to recruit the people we need to provide an excellent service to Openreach. We have many exciting roles to fill, I would encourage anyone who is interested in working on this important national infrastructure project to visit our website.”

Openreach’s updated build plan will be fundamental to the UK Government achieving its target of delivering ‘gigabit capable’ broadband to 85 per cent of UK by 2025 and it follows an extended investment commitment by its parent, BT Group – which means the company will now build Full Fibre technology to a total of 25 million premises, including more than six million in the hardest-to-serve parts of the country by the end of 2026.

Openreach is already building Full Fibre faster, at lower cost and higher quality than anyone else in the UK, having made the technology available to more than 5 million homes and business so far.