Openreach Sign UK “Fibre” Broadband Co-Funding Deal with Redrow Homes

Property developer Redrow has signed a new partnership with Openreach (BT) that will result in 3,000 properties on 14 existing developments being upgraded from ADSL to receive speeds of ‘up to’ 80Mbps via Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) tech. New builds can also expect to receive “full fibre” FTTP.

The co-funded deal includes various housing developments in Yorkshire, the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Devon, Wales and West Sussex. Apparently the first tranche of residents should benefit by early October 2018 and a full list of the affected developments can be found below.

List of Redrow Developments to Benefit from FTTC
· Throne Road in Rowley Regis, West Midlands;
· Cawston Meadows in Dunchurch, Warwickshire;
· Park View in Hinckley, Leicestershire;
· Hamilton Gardens, in Leicester,
· Warren Grove & Warren Farm in Dawlish, Devon;
· Bishops Court in Exeter, Devon;
· Claro Road in Harrogate, Yorkshire;
· Woodlands in Horsforth Vale, Yorkshire;
· Saxon Grange within Sherburn in Elmet, Yorkshire;
· Manor View in Treharris, Wales;
· The Grange in Wenvoe, Wales;
· Southbank in Newton Kyme, Yorkshire;
· Ashdown Vale in Bognor Regis, West Sussex.

Meanwhile all future Redrow homes can expect to benefit from ultrafast broadband via Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP), which can deliver speeds of up to 1Gbps (note: most residential packages will use the cheaper 330Mbps or slower tier). Openreach has an agreement in place with the UK Government and the Home Builders Federation (HBF) to provide this infrastructure free of charge to all new housing developments of 30+ properties.

Kim Mears, Openreach’s MD of Infrastructure Delivery, said:

“I’m delighted to see customers benefitting from this initiative, some of whom have struggled with lower than average speeds in the past. The success of this agreement shows the power of working together in partnership to find a solution to make high-speed broadband available for these customers.

We are open to replicating this approach with other developers by looking with them at their developments over the past few years, and offering a competitive cost where they want to improve the broadband speeds of customers they have sold houses to.”

John Tutte, Redrow Homes CEO, said:

“When the homes at these sites were first planned – they were not within the scope of any commercial or government investment plans for fibre broadband. We saw the potential of a national co-funding agreement with Openreach for homes we’d previously built that had lower than average broadband speeds. We wanted to improve our customers’ experience in homes that don’t have the benefit of full fibre technology.

The results from our recent survey reflect the fact that high-speed broadband is becoming a must-have for home buyers who will continue to demand faster and better broadband connections, and we wanted to ensure that our customers weren’t left behind.”

Openreach has already signed various similar agreements with other property developers and estates, although many other developments are still stuck on slower broadband connectivity. We should point out that Virgin Media has had a similar partnership with Redrow since September 2016 (here), which shows that Openreach aren’t the only game in town, although Virgin’s network isn’t present in as many locations as Openreach’s.