Openreach ‘Fibre First’ announcement applauded

The CWU has welcomed Openreach’s announcement that it is launching an ambitious new ‘Fibre First’ programme in a bid to fast-track progress towards an ‘Ultrafast Britain’.

Openreach is promising to take the lead in the next phase of the national rollout of high speed broadband by accelerating its Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) programme – with the aim of reaching 3 million homes and businesses to ultrafast broadband by the end of 2020.

Its ultimate ambition if the conditions are right, is to build large-scale FTTP network in the UK – with the interim objective of making FTTP connections available to 10 million homes and businesses by the mid-2020s.

To kick-start this major investment in the UK’s communications infrastructure, Openreach has announced it will be recruiting and training no fewer than 3,000 field engineers during 2018.

Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Manchester will be the first to benefit from the company’s plan to deliver faster speeds with the rollout of FTTP to 40 UK towns, cities and boroughs – starting this year.

Crucially, however, Openreach is determined to demonstrate its ability to deploy affordable FTTP at scale in rural and suburban areas as well as in the biggest towns and cities – and, in so doing, is signalling a different approach to the market-driven emphasis of its competitors, which are focussing largely on the most profitable urban conurbations.

CWU deputy general secretary (telecoms & financial services) Andy Kerr said: “ The CWU is encouraged that Openreach is not just targeting low hanging fruit but intends to extend its ‘Fibre First’ rollout to suburban and rural areas as well. This is something the CWU has always argued is essential to tackle a dangerous digital divide in which rural and poorer urban areas have inevitably been the main sufferers, something that was always going to be the case given the largely market-driven approach to the rollout of high speed broadband in the UK.

“Another big positive, from our perspective, is the recruitment of 3,000 engineers who will receive permanent contracts and full training from Openreach – a far cry from the outsourced and agency resourcing models of a number of other providers which sadly often represents a race to the bottom with regards to terms and conditions.”

Andy concludes: “With the internet pervading all aspects of our lives its essential the UK secures long term investment solutions to keep abreast of the digital future.   The UK currently ranks last amongst the EU5 nations for the availability of ultrafast broadband.

“Whilst Openreach have made this commitment we believe more must be done to achieve the Government’s digital infrastructure goals.  Far higher levels of public finding will be required as well as a regulatory framework that doesn’t pursue lower pricing and cost cutting which has a knock on effect on the salaries and decent labour standards of engineers.”