Broadband in rural areas of Rutland to be improved
Around 35,000 properties in the Peterborough, Stamford and Rutland area have benefited from the upgrade
Broadband for residents in rural areas of Rutland is being improved.
OpenReach will be installing new full fibre in Thistleton and Uppingham, as part of a "huge" £15-billion engineering programme to upgrade 25 million properties across the UK.
They’ll join more than 4,500 other homes and businesses across the county including those in Ketton, Manton, Wing and Whissendine.
It comes after research found a record 38 million Brits have suffered broadband outages of three or more hours in the last 12 months - up 73%.
Figures from Uswitch's annual broadband report also reveal that 4 in 10 (37%) have been left without a connection for nine hours or more, and a quarter (26%) have been hit by outages at least once a week.
Wendy Sycamore, Regional Engagement Manager at OpenReach, explains why outages happen:
“There's a number of reasons why we might see the broadband outages in various different areas. It can range from criminal damage to severe weather. But it's also because our broadband network, that traditional network, that still a lot of people are using today is ageing and it needs to be replaced. So, it's ultimately based on a part fibre part copper service technology, and it's that copper service that is growing old and coming to the end of its life.
“It served us very well for decades, but it needs to be upgraded and replaced so we're currently in the middle of a huge £15 billion engineering programme to upgrade 25 million properties right across the UK. That is replacing that old network with a new full fibre broadband network.
“Now we have already reached 15 million properties across the UK and 35,000 of those are in the Peterborough, Stampford and Rutland area. So, lots of people can already benefit and there's lots more to come.”
Wendy continued:
“We already know that full fibre broadband technology is 5 times more reliable than the old copper service. It's got 70 to 80% fewer faults than our current technology.
"Its a lot more reliable, it's a lot faster. And ultimately it's future proof. This network we're laying will serve us for decades to come.
"Last year in 2023, we saw the biggest increase in data traffic, there was a 9% increase in data traffic. That's only going to continue. Full fibre optic technology is the technology that can handle all of those increases and that we need going into the future.”