Openreach, a leading telecommunications company, is appealing to the residents of Seend to support an initiative aimed at bringing ultrafast and highly reliable Full Fibre broadband to local homes and businesses. The company has issued a warning, indicating that the community may lose a rare opportunity for a Full Fibre upgrade if they do not apply for free Government broadband vouchers, which can be utilized to obtain faster speeds and enhanced reliability.
Presently, the scheme is just 15 vouchers short of proceeding, necessitating more participants to ensure that the village joins the over 80,000 homes and businesses across Wiltshire that already enjoy access to full fibre broadband.
Through the Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and the deployment of advanced broadband signal boosting technology, thousands of remote rural communities like Seend are now within reach of ultrafast technology.
Openreach has identified Seend as a suitable candidate for Full Fibre, and it is encouraging local residents to take the next step by applying for and pooling free Government Gigabit Vouchers to support the development.
Residents can check their eligibility and pledge their vouchers on the Connect My Community website. These vouchers, which do not incur any costs for residents, enable Openreach to collaborate with the local community in constructing a customized, co-funded network. Furthermore, these vouchers can be combined to extend the ultrafast and highly reliable network to premises in outlying rural areas that may not be covered by private investments.
Martin Williams, Openreach’s partnership director for the West, expressed enthusiasm about the opportunity to bring the benefits of ultrafast and highly reliable Full Fibre broadband to the Seend community. He noted that while there has been a positive response thus far, an additional 15 participants are required to pledge their vouchers for the scheme to proceed.
Williams emphasized the challenges of expanding the network to remote locations, highlighting the necessity of a collaborative effort between residents, their neighbors, and Openreach.
He concluded, “Everyone who pledges a voucher will be doing their bit to help make Seend one of the best-connected places in the UK.”
Openreach is committed to investing £15 billion in providing full fibre broadband to 25 million homes, with more than six million in the UK’s most challenging areas. The government’s support is integral to achieving this ambitious goal.
Upon reaching the pledge target for the scheme, residents must validate their vouchers with the government, enabling Openreach to commence construction. As part of the funding conditions, residents are required to commit to ordering a full fibre service from a provider of their choice for at least 12 months once the new network becomes available and confirm their connection.
