Engineering work is underway for the Connecting Shropshire project

Work on the Connecting Shropshire project is stepping up a gear with engineering work beginning in local telephone exchanges.

Connecting Shropshire, a partnership between Shropshire Council, BT and BDUK, will enable more than 62,000 rural or very rural homes and businesses across the county to access faster broadband by the end of Spring 2016. The majority of these premises will benefit from availability of superfast speeds of 24Mbps or more.

In addition, planning and survey work has begun to confirm the routes for the approximately 1,300 km of fibre that will be laid during the deployment. Some of the first communities to benefit are expected to be announced this autumn.

Amy Tubb (pictured) is an engineer for Openreach, BT’s local network business, and is one of the team working to extend the fibre spine infrastructure that connects local telephone exchanges in to BT’s core network.

Amy is one of 26 new engineering recruits who are based in Shropshire. Since starting work with BT in May, she has been shadowing technicians working on the company’s commercial fibre roll-out and is set to complete training and go live in one week’s time, fully skilled in both copper and fibre network engineering. Amy previously worked as an installation technician in The Royal Signals, and is one of many ex-armed forces personnel taken on by BT to support its roll-out of superfast broadband across the UK.

Amy said:

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my training with Openreach. I relocated to Shrewsbury when I got this job and am I really looking forward to rolling out fibre across Shropshire. As a country girl, Connecting Shropshire is an awesome project to be working on.”

Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council Cabinet member with responsibility for broadband said:

“The roll-out of high-speed fibre will be a welcome improvement for many people, and a significant boost to the local economy. It takes the potential use of the internet to a whole new level, increasing the range of activity that can be managed online both by businesses and at home. This is a very exciting development for Shropshire’s economy.

In the coming weeks and months, the public will no-doubt see Openreach engineers out in the community and we ask that local people be patient during this major project, covering some sparsely populated areas.”

Bill Murphy, managing director for Next Generation Access (NGA)  at BT, added:

“The Connecting Shropshire programme is continuing at speed. Building a robust, future-proofed fibre network is physically and technically challenging but we are making great progress. We look forward to seeing the project deliver faster, more reliable broadband services to many more homes and businesses throughout the county over the next few years.”

Note:
Next Generation Access is fibre broadband