The rural community of Llanymawddwy, in Gwynedd, will now be able to access some of the fastest and most reliable broadband speeds in Europe thanks to a partnership between local residents and Openreach.
Situated near the head of the river Dyfi and nearly 20 miles from Machynlleth, the secluded village of Llanymawddwy will be able to access speeds of up to one gigabit bit per second (1Gbps) using Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) technology where fibre is run directly from the exchange all the way to property.
In order to build this ‘full fibre’- network Openreach engineers replaced and erected a total of 36 new telephone poles to carry more than 15 miles of fibre cable from the telephone exchange in Dolgellau to the residents of Llanymawddwy.
The improved fibre broadband infrastructure, which will cover 70 properties, is being enabled by Openreach’s Community Fibre Partnership (CFP) programme – a scheme which is designed to help people living and working in rural communities that are not included in any current roll-out plans. By working with Openreach to co-fund the installation, hundreds of communities across the UK have been able to bring ultrafast, ultra-reliable broadband to their local area, despite the commercial challenges.
The cost of the Llanymawddwy CFP will be covered by investment from both Openreach and the residents themselves who were able to access the Welsh Government’s top-up to the UK Government’s Rural Gigabit Voucher scheme.
Local Councillor, John Pugh Roberts, said “We’re very pleased that ultrafast broadband has arrived in Llanymawddwy and Cwm Cywarch.”
“It will transform our day-to-day lives– for the younger generation, businesses and those that are working from home. It’ll be a valuable asset to the area.”
Openreach Partnership Director for Wales, Connie Dixon, said: “We all know how essential it is for homes and businesses up and down the country to have fast, reliable broadband. From running a business to home schooling and shopping – so much is done online.”
“While more than 95 per cent of premises in Wales can already access superfast broadband we know there is more to do to reach those final premises.
“There are a small number of communities, such as Llanymawddwy, that are missing out on good broadband connectivity as providers, for a variety of reasons, struggle to upgrade alone. To bridge this gap our Community Fibre Partnership helps bring high-speed connections to those areas.
“This has been a huge engineering challenge for our local engineers but by making ultrafast broadband available to the Llanymawddwy community we’re underlining our commitment to making fibre broadband as widely available as possible across Wales – including the ‘hard to reach’ areas.”
Welsh Government Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport Lee Waters said: “We have a package of measures to bring fast reliable broadband to the remaining communities who are yet to receive it. One of the measures is a top up to the UK Government’s Rural Gigabit Voucher scheme which allows communities to upgrade to some of the fastest broadband speeds available. It’s great to see Llanymawddwy benefit from this.”
More than 120,000 homes and businesses have signed up to Openreach’s Community Fibre Partnership CFP programme which is bringing fibre broadband to some of the most challenging areas of Wales and the rest of the UK.
