UK ISP Quickline has announced that their state aid (Project Gigabit) supported roll-out of a new gigabit full fibre (FTTP) broadband network in the North Yorkshire village of Escrick has now reached 600 homes. As part of that, they’ve teamed up with PBS Construction to show pupils at the local Primary School how they build the network via a “Digger Day“.
The school Digger Day, which sounds like a dream come true for many kids (particularly boys of a certain age – usually aged 5 to 80+), is a joint project that is designed to cut costs by developing a future work force based on cheap child labour help improve understanding and awareness of the delivery of full fibre broadband in their communities (joking with that strike-out π , obviously).
The event comprised a short presentation to a full school assembly to explain the work Quickline and PBS are undertaking in the village, followed by the opportunity for all pupils to see a digger up close in the playground and learn more about how it operates.
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Judging by the picture, a few lucky little ones also got the chance to have a go in the digger. But it’s unclear whether or not they were also coached in the ways of dealing with anti-pole campaigners, long breaks for tea drinking and the need to tackle Openreach’s many laboriously “fun” PIA processes. But we’d assume.. probably not.
More Digger Days are being planned for the new school year, with hundreds more children set to be involved in the programme from September 2024.
Tamara Butterworth, Social Values Executive at Quickline, said:
βWe have been working with PBS in Escrick over recent months to build our network in the village and so people have seen us, our vehicles and our equipment around.
Itβs really important to us that we foster relationships with the communities we serve and spending time at school, talking to the children about what are doing is a great way of bringing it to life and educating them at the same time.β
Quickline is being supported by funding of c.Β£500m from Northleaf Capital Partners and c.Β£177m of public subsidy from Project Gigabit (here, here and here). The provider holds an aspiration to cove around 500,000 premises in rural and semi-rural areas across Northern England and beyond with βultrafast broadbandβ β via both FTTP and wireless technologies β βby 2025β (here). Some 200,000 of those rural premises will be tackled by their wireless network, with the other half or more coming from FTTP.
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