Full Fibre broadband funding to East and West Sussex
Around 11,500 homes and businesses in East and West Sussex are set to benefit from a broadband boost thanks to a £3m investment by Openreach (a digital network provider used by BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen) as part of a wider investment across the South East of England.
When work is finished, people living and working in communities across East Sussex and West Sussex will be able to contact their broadband provider and upgrade to Full Fibre broadband, with the new network being built in locations such as Uckfield and Poundhill.
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.
Broadband statistics in the South East
Kieran Wines, Openreach’s South East Regional Director 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.
“In 2021 our engineers built around 770 metres of new broadband cables every minute – making ultrafast broadband available to another home or business every 13 seconds. We’ve already reached six million homes and businesses across the UK with ultrafast Full Fibre technology, but we know there’s more to do and we’re committed to doing it.”
Across the South East, more than 145,000 (or 31%) of homes and businesses have ordered a Full Fibre service from a range of retail service providers using the Openreach network. This means another 305,000 could be benefiting from some of the fastest, most reliable broadband connections in the world 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 the South East to Full Fibre. It estimated this would create a £8.7 billion boost to the local economy.
Openreach’s plans across the UK
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% of UK by 2025.
Find out more about Openreach’s Fibre First programme, latest availability and local plans here: www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband
