Member Article

2,800 Sedgefield homes and businesses benefit from superfast broadband

Super-fast broadband has arrived in and around the Sedgefield area, with Fishburn leading the way with the top demand for superfast speeds.

More than a third of all the new fibre broadband connections ordered across the Sedgefield area since the first street cabinet went live in early January are in Fishburn.

Many of those benefitting from the new technology are now surfing the internet around 20 times faster than before.

With nearly two hundred orders placed this month in the Sedgefield area, demand continues to grow as more and more local people opt for the sophisticated fibre technology, which can see their speeds increase to up to 80Mbps1.

MP for Sedgefield, Phil Wilson, joined representatives from the Digital Durham programme, BT and members of the local community at Sedgefield Parish Hall to hear why faster broadband is such good news.

In total more than 2,800 homes and businesses in Sedgefield now have access to the high-speed, fibre technology thanks to the Digital Durham programme.

Nine new fibre broadband cabinets, which are connected to the telephone exchange at Bishop Auckland by around 25 km of underground optical fibres, have already ‘gone live’ and further work is scheduled to bring the technology to a further 1,200 premises.

This includes 250 premises in the vicinity of Neville Drive where telephone lines are not served by a street cabinet but run straight from the phone exchange to homes and businesses.

A new street cabinet will be installed, enabling those properties to benefit from the upgrade.

Phil Wilson, said: “It is great that people in Fishburn and other parts of my constituency have chosen to discover what increased internet connectivity can do for them.

“There can be few areas of modern life which are not influenced in some way by broadband connectivity – whether it’s support how we work, how we learn, how we communicate with friends and family, how we entertain ourselves.

“Increasingly that connectivity needs to be superfast, as more and more of our lives move online, so now is the time to embrace it and switch to the superfast lane.”

Cabinet member for Corporate Services at Durham County Council, Councillor Jane Brown, said: “It is really pleasing to hear that thousands of people in Sedgefield now have access to super-fast broadband.

“As a council we are committed to helping residents and businesses across the county get connected to fibre technology, which will help improve access to jobs, allow local companies to compete in the global marketplace and create new opportunities for local people in the way they work, learn and enjoy their leisure time.”

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