Lincolnshire village urged to seize chance to secure full fibre broadband

Openreach is joining forces with local MP, Matt Warman, to urge people living and working in the Lincolnshire village of Friskney to get behind a full fibre broadband upgrade.

Free Government broadband vouchers are available to more than 500 local homes and businesses, so they can secure faster and more reliable broadband[1].

However, they risk missing out as only 50 per cent of people have pledged their support.

Local MP, Matt Warman, joined the Openreach team this week for a last-ditch bid to raise awareness. He said: This is a great opportunity for villagers to secure a full fibre future. All they need to do is pledge their voucher and faster and more reliable broadband will soon be available. Being connected is a key part of everyday life, and it’s vital that local people seize the opportunity to get this new technology.

“I look forward to even more progress being made across my constituency so as many people as possible can have the best access to digital services for employment, education and entertainment.”

Residents can check if they qualify and pledge their voucher on the Connect My Community website. Using the vouchers – which don’t cost residents anything, enables Openreach to work with a local community to build a customised, co-funded network.

Once enough people pledge and validate their vouchers, Openreach engineers will start the build. This can take up to 12-18 months, and some properties may go live before others. Wendy Sycamore, Openreach’s regional engagement manager, said: “This is a really exciting opportunity for the people of Friskney a to bring all the benefits of ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband to their community.

“Our Fibre Community Partnership programme has meant that we’ve been able to potentially bring hundreds more communities across the UK, into our Full Fibre build plans. But building out the network to these harder to reach locations is still challenging – which is why its only possible with everyone working together – you, your neighbours and Openreach.

“Everyone who pledges a voucher will be doing their bit to help make Friskney one of the best-connected places in the UK.”

“We’re investing £15 billion to build full fibre broadband to 25 million homes – and more than six million of those will be in the toughest third of the UK – but we can’t upgrade the whole country alone. This latest support from government is a vital part of that process.”

Funding through the Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and the deployment of innovative engineering techniques means thousands more remote and rural communities like Friskney are now within reach of the ultrafast technology.

As part of the funding conditions residents are asked to commit to ordering a full fibre service from a provider of their choice for at least 12 months once the new network is available, and confirm that they are connected.

Full fibre technology provides more reliable, resilient, and future-proof connectivity; meaning fewer faults; more predictable, consistent speeds and enough capacity to easily meet growing data demands.

Fibre optics - strands of glass around one-tenth the thickness of a human hair - transmit data using light signals. Fibre is smaller, lighter and more durable than copper cabling and less vulnerable to damage.

This short video explains what full fibre technology is and there’s more info here.