334,000 more Midlands homes and businesses to get ultrafast broadband boost

Openreach says around 334,000 more West Midlands homes and businesses are set to benefit from investment in the region of £134 million.

The UK’s largest broadband network provider is extending the service to towns and villages in Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands conurbation including Aldridge, Bloxwich, Penn, Sedgley and Tettenhall.

Work in places like Rugeley, Shrewsbury, Stafford, Telford and parts of Walsall and Wolverhampton will take place between now and 2026, with the full list of locations and timescales published on Openreach’s website.

The news comes hot on the heels of a similar announcement last month, when 185,000 premises – in 82 mainly rural and harder to serve areas across the region – were also included in Openreach’s build plan.

Both announcements build on Openreach’s existing work in the region, where nearly 500,000 homes and businesses can already order ultrafast full fibre broadband.

Following a competitive tender process, a number of partners – including MAP Group and Telent – were chosen by Openreach to support the upgrades and will play a crucial role in building the new network to thousands of premises in these locations

Kasam Hussain, Openreach’s regional director for the West Midlands, said: “Nobody in the UK is building full fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach. We’re reaching more communities than ever and our team of highly-skilled engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world.

“Just last month we announced 82 rural and hard to reach locations across the West Midlands were to benefit, so it’s great that we’re able to reveal another huge broadband boost for the region with these additional locations.

“The latest details and timescales are available on our website as the build planning progresses.”