BT to bring broadband to Welsh ‘not-spot’
BT has announced it was close to finding a way to deliver a copper broadband service to the small Welsh community of Erbistock near Wrexham which has previously been unable to receive a broadband service. The company has spent more than a year exploring potential solutions for the village that wouldn’t require significant additional funding from the public sector or from members of the community.
The news follows reports in the media that BT had quoted more than £500,000 to deliver broadband to the area. This quote was, in fact, just one of several put forward by BT and the company has since developed other potential solutions.
The majority of local residents have been unable to receive a broadband service to date due to their homes being too far away from the nearest telephone exchange at Bangor-on-Dee. BT believes it has overcome this challenge however by offering residents the option of transferring their line from the Bangor-on-Dee exchange to the closer exchange at Overton-on-Dee.
This solution will allow all 80 premises in the area to receive a stable copper broadband service of between 1Mb/s and 4Mb/s. As BT’s network is open to all UK broadband suppliers, local people will be able to choose which supplier they take a broadband service from, ensuring they benefit from the best value deals in the market.
Openreach, the part of BT that is responsible for the copper connection between the local exchange and customer premises, has already completed the engineering work required to transfer customers’ lines to the Overton-on-Dee exchange.
Local residents who are interested in receiving a broadband service should contact their chosen broadband supplier to request that their line is migrated to the Overton-on-Dee exchange. Residents who choose this option will have to change their telephone number which will incur a cost of around £100. However, residents may be able to make an application to a broadband support scheme aimed at addressing rural broadband not-spots in Wales to help cover this cost.
Olivia Garfield, BT strategy director, said: “We have bent over backwards to find a broadband solution for Erbistock and have been exploring possible solutions for more than a year now. There have been considerable technical hurdles to overcome but we are pleased to say that we are now very close to delivering a broadband service to the community.
“The proposed solution will deliver a stable copper broadband service to everyone in the village, and the open nature of our network means that local people will be able to enjoy a choice of broadband supplier and the great value deals that come with competition.
“We take our responsibility to deliver broadband to as many homes in the UK as possible very seriously. We’re urging as many Erbistock residents as possible to take up the offer of moving their line to the Overton-on-Dee exchange so that they can start to enjoy the benefits of broadband.”