Openreach has confirmed that Coventry will become the 11th city in the UK to join its full fibre network, which aims to reach three million premises by 2020.
Infrastructure supplier Openreach has announced that consumers in the West Midlands will be the latest to benefit from the rollout of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connectivity, as the company continues its rollout of full fibre technology.
Coventry will be the latest location to be hooked up to the network, joining nearby Birmingham, as well as nine other cities up and down the UK that are already part of the Fibre First programme.
Eventually, Openreach is aiming to connect 40 UK towns, cities and boroughs to the network by 2020 as part of its plan to reach three million homes and businesses by the end of that year.
Chief Executive of Openreach Clive Selley said: “We are making significant progress in the West Midlands as we get on with building the infrastructure Britain needs to stay ahead in the global digital economy.
“Despite the challenges of planning, street works and permissions, we’re reaching thousands of homes each week and we’re on track for our ambition of reaching ten million premises by the mid-2020s.”
In addition to being more reliable and consistent than other fibre technology, FTTP can offer much faster speeds to consumers. The technology can deliver speeds of up to 1Gbps, which is around 24 times faster than the current UK average of 46Mbps.
Openreach stated this means users have much more capacity available for multiple devices and things like on-demand video, virtual reality gaming and smart homes.
The government also recognises FTTP technology as the future of the UK’s connectivity, and recently confirmed its intentions to ensure every home and business in the UK can benefit from a full fibre connection by 2033.
Visiting the latest deployment, Digital Minister Margot James said: “Making sure that people have access to full fibre broadband, as quickly as is realistically possible, is of huge importance. It’s great to see Openreach making significant progress in the West Midlands, adding Coventry to the list of areas to benefit from the early stages of the programme.”
