Samlesbury residents encouraged to pledge free broadband vouchers

Without the maximum numbers of free Government vouchers pledged some premises may miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime full fibre upgrade, which guarantees faster speeds and greater reliability.

Funding through the Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme means thousands more remote rural communities like Samlesbury are now within reach of the ultrafast technology.

Residents can check if they qualify and pledge their voucher on the Connect My Community website. The vouchers – which don’t cost residents anything - enable 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.

All residents have to do is pledge their virtual voucher, confirm their details with the Government to validate their pledge, then order a service from a provider of their choice once service is available to them.

Paul Harland, Openreach’s regional engagement manager, said: “This is a really exciting opportunity for the people of Samlesbury to bring all the benefits of ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband to their community. We’ve had a great response so far, but we still need more people to sign up and pledge their voucher so the majority benefit from the new technology.

“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 its only possible with everyone working together – you, your neighbours and Openreach.

“Everyone who pledges a voucher will be doing their bit to help make Samlesbury one of the best-connected places in the UK.”

“We’re investing £15 billion 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.”

Full fibre technology provides more reliable and resilient connectivity; meaning fewer faults; more predictable, consistent speeds and enough capacity to easily meet growing data demands. It's also future proof, which means it will serve generations to come and won’t need to be upgraded for decades.

Fibre optics - strands of glass around one-tenth the thickness of a human hair - transmit data using light signals. Fibre is smaller, lighter and more durable than copper cabling and less vulnerable to damage.

This short video explains what full fibre technology is and there’s more info here.