AROUND 45,000 more homes and businesses across the Isle of Wight are predicted to benefit from a major broadband boost thanks to an estimated £13.5m investment by Openreach.

The UK’s largest digital network provider is used by the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen.

When work is finished, the majority of people living and working in nine locations will be able to contact their broadband provider and upgrade to Full Fibre broadband on the Openreach network.

The areas are Ventnor, Ryde, Sandown, Freshwater, Newport, Shanklin, Bembridge, Wootton Bridge and Niton.

The new work adds to that already done by WightFibre, where nearly 50 per cent of homes and businesses can already upgrade.

Connie Dixon, Openreach’s regional director for the South East, said: “Nobody in the UK is building Full Fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach.

"We’re passing more than 50,000 new homes and businesses every week and installing around 800m of cable every minute, with our teams of highly
skilled engineers working alongside our build partners to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world.

“We’ve already reached eight million homes and businesses across the UK with ultrafast Full Fibre technology including more than more than 800,000 across the region, but we know there’s more to do and we’re committed to doing it.”

Full Fibre broadband is up to ten times faster than the average home broadband connection and around five times more reliable than the traditional copper-based network, providing more predictable, consistent speeds.

Openreach employs 50 people on the Island.

Five specialist engineers from the chief engineer’s team will be supervising the build in addition to further support from engineering partners and a dedicated civil engineering team based in Ryde.

Find out more about the Fibre First programme, latest availability and local plans here.