Openreach is celebrating the milestone of reaching 90% coverage of its full fibre rollout across Northern Ireland – with the region becoming the first within the Openreach UK network to hit this target.
Thu, 15/05/2025 - 10:01
BT has signed a contract worth nearly £10m to deliver full fibre broadband access to nearly 1,800 hard-to-reach sites across the Swansea Bay City Region as part of a project to support levelling up in key areas where a connectivity gap exists.
The company has been awarded the contract for the Better Broadband Infill Project by Swansea Bay City Deal’s Digital Infrastructure Programme, which will be delivered in close partnership with infrastructure supplier Openreach.
BT will provide additional funding to increase the overall value of the project to more than £10m.
It will bring full fibre broadband access to 1,533 premises and an additional 256 sites across the four counties in the Swansea Bay City Region: Pembrokeshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire, in predominantly rural areas where the cost to provide faster broadband services is considerably higher.
It specifically targets premises that currently have broadband speeds of less than 30Mbps and who are not in scope for any other government-funded fibre expansion projects or part of commercial build plans.
Susi Marston, Head of Public Sector Wales at BT said: “The Better Broadband Infill Project will improve services for thousands of people across the Swansea Bay City Region, who will benefit from connectivity even in hard-to-reach areas.”
The Better Broadband Infill Project is set to start this month and will continue its delivery across the region over six phases, with the first 220 premises connected by December this year.
It is hoped the project will complete by March 31st 2027.
