Staffordshire to benefit from £7m private investment in ultrafast connectivity

Full Fibre has announced the next 119,000 UK homes and businesses in poorly-served areas of
the UK it is to offer supercharged connectivity to, with over 24,000 of those located in Staffordshire.

Working closely with Staffordshire County Council’s Superfast Staffordshire project, communities across the county will benefit from Full Fibre’s latest build plans.

Full Fibre guarantee to offer the ability to connect to their ultrafast network to every single property in the towns they commit to where other providers my simply serve the easy to reach, ignoring the rest.

Furthermore, as a wholesale only provider, those residents and businesses that connect to its network have a wide choice of ISPs from which they can purchase a service.

Leek, Cheadle, Upper Tean and Uttoxeter are all in the plan and Full Fibre Ltd are actively considering further investment in the county.

The announcement comes in the wake of the UK Government’s Office for Science report which advises that the Prime Minister should consider “designating broadband as an essential utility”.

Whilst the UK is delivering more and more vital gigabit infrastructure, the focus of the bigger providers is in deploying in dense urban areas, furthering the digital divide between urban and rural areas. Full Fibre’s FTTP (Fibre to the Premise) investment into these communities signals Full Fibre’s intent that everyone should get access to ultrafast, reliable services and the opportunities that come with it.

Rising expectations from consumers and demands such as increased homeworking and video streaming mean people are more dependent on fast, reliable connectivity than ever.

“We are delighted to be announcing the extension of our network into Staffordshire, covering even more hard to reach locations that have previously been neglected by other providers. These chosen areas are ones that have been previously left behind and rely on ageing copper connections, that do not meet the needs of modern, homeworking families,” said Full Fibre CEO Oliver Helm.

Staffordshire County Council’s cabinet member for environment, infrastructure and climate change Simon Tagg said: “Ultrafast broadband connection to residents and businesses is crucial for our communities to ensure they have the same opportunities as the rest of the country. Our Superfast Staffordshire programme has been a huge success and enabled most people in the county to get connected to faster broadband speeds and full fibre connection is another big step forward. We will continue to work with partners like Full Fibre Ltd. to extend connection reach to more areas as soon as possible.”

Full Fibre has the goal of reaching over 500,000 premises by 2025. It is well on its way towards this target with large scale networks in Shropshire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire and the majority of premises in the communities announced in Staffordshire will be able to access their gigabit capable internet services within the next 12 months.