Residents in Tregynon, Llanbrynmair and Kerry are being urged to get behind a bid to bring ultrafast full fibre broadband to local homes and businesses.
Openreach has warned that the communities risk missing out on the full fibre upgrade if they don’t apply for free UK Government broadband vouchers.
If enough people sign up, residents of the villages will join the 25,000 homes and businesses across Powys that have access to full fibre broadband.
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Funding through the Governments Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and the deployment of new broadband signal boosting technology – which can extend the reach of the full fibre network, means thousands more remote rural communities are now within reach of the ultrafast technology.
Openreach identified Tregynon, Llanbrynmair and Kerry as being strong contenders for Full Fibre and is urging residents to take the next step by applying for and pooling together free UK vouchers to help fund the build.
Using the vouchers – which don’t cost residents anything, enables Openreach to work with a local community to build a customised, co-funded network.
The vouchers can be combined to extend the ultrafast, ultra-reliable network to premises in outlying rural areas which won’t be covered by private investment.
Martin Williams, Openreach’s Partnership Director for Wales, said: “This is an exciting opportunity for the people of Tregynon, Llanbrynmair and Kerry to bring all the benefits of ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband to their communities.
“Our Fibre Community programme has meant that we’ve been able to potentially bring hundreds more communities across Wales and the rest of 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 it’s only possible with everyone working together – you, your neighbours and Openreach.
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“Everyone who pledges a voucher will be doing their bit to help make Tregynon, Llanbrynmair and Kerry among the best-connected places in the UK.”
Once the pledge target for the scheme is reached, residents need to ensure they then validate their vouchers with the UK Government so that Openreach can confirm that building work can get underway.
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 they are connected.
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