More than 600 homes and businesses in a Powys town could soon benefit from ultrafast broadband.

Openreach has identified these properties in and around Llanwrtyd Wells as being within reach for a full fibre upgrade.

This is part of a wider initiative by Openreach to bring ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband to rural Welsh locations with the support of UK Government broadband vouchers.

However, the company has issued a warning that the town could miss out on the upgrade if not enough residents apply for the free UK Government broadband vouchers.

These vouchers are crucial to securing faster speeds and greater reliability.

Currently, the scheme is 35 pledges short of its full funding target.

If enough people sign up, Llanwrtyd Wells will join more than 900,000 properties across Wales that already have access to full fibre broadband.

Martin Williams, director of partnerships for Openreach in Wales, said: "This is a really exciting opportunity for people living in Llanwrtyd Wells to bring all the benefits of ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband to their community.

"Our Fibre Community Partnership programme has meant that we’ve been able to potentially bring hundreds more communities across 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.

"Everyone who pledges a voucher will be doing their bit to help make their community one of 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 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 that they are connected.

The full fibre technology promises more reliable, resilient, and future-proof connectivity, translating into fewer faults, and more predictable, consistent speeds.

It also has the capacity to easily meet growing data demands.

The technology uses fibre optics, strands of glass around one-tenth the thickness of a human hair, to transmit data using light signals.

Fibre is smaller, lighter, more durable than copper cabling, and less vulnerable to damage.

Similar to Llanwrtyd Wells, residents can check if they qualify and pledge their voucher on the Connect My Community website.

Using the vouchers – which don’t cost residents anything – enables Openreach to work with a local community to build a customised, co-funded network.

Once enough people pledge and validate their vouchers, Openreach engineers will start the build.

This can take up to 12 to 18 months, and some properties may go live before others.

Mr Williams added: "We’re investing £15bn to build full fibre broadband to 25 million homes – and more than six million of those will be in the toughest third of the UK – but we can’t upgrade the whole country alone.

"This latest support from government is a vital part of that process.”

You can find out more about the benefits of an upgrade to full fibre broadband on the Openreach website.