West Midlands moving to broadband fast lane

Connectivity in the West Midlands is set to move up a gear, with Birmingham Council and the City of Wolverhampton Council both rolling out gigabit-capable broadband across their housing stock. Hyperoptic, the UK’s hyperfast broadband provider, will be enabling this step change in service.

Hyperoptic offers ‘full’ fibre broadband, which enables average broadband speeds of up to 900Mbps. This is over 11x faster than the UK average. With full fibre, users can enjoy a hyperfast, reliable service, no matter what time of day it is, or how many devices in the home are connected to the Internet. Currently, only 18% of properties in the UK have access to a full fibre service.

Birmingham is the UK's largest local authority, with the largest social housing portfolio of approximately 62,000 homes. Its partnership with Hyperoptic will see it deliver gigabit-capable connectivity to an initial first tranche of 8,000 homes across the city. 

Hyperoptic  has a strong footprint in Birmingham, with thousands of customers already connected to its network, and is proud to be investing further in the city. Last year it supported a new programme from the Birmingham Education Partnership, and provided a significant donation to help the city’s most disadvantaged children and their families access online home learning and wellbeing support.

As part of this new partnership with Birmingham Council, Hyperoptic will also be providing free connectivity to local community centres, enabling people who live in the area to access gigabit-capable broadband for free.

The City of Wolverhampton Council own approximately 21,000 homes across the city. Planning has already started for delivery to its largest estate, Heath Town, which has over 1,000 homes. The council is proactively supporting residents to get online to achieve its ambitions to be a 100% digital-included city - including a Wolves Online device and connectivity lending scheme, and ensuring residents can access affordable broadband solutions.

Hyperoptic offers a range of competitively-priced packages, all available on monthly rolling contracts. Last month it launched ‘Hyperoptic’s Fair Fibre Plan,’ a new affordable tariff that enables people on specific means-tested benefits to get access to discounted rates on its monthly rolling packages. With this plan, the cost of its 50Mbps broadband-only service on a monthly rolling contract is reduced to only £15 a month.

Liam McAvoy, MD, Business Development, Hyperoptic: “We have spent the last decade  relentlessly focussed on enabling as many people as possible to benefit from access to hyperfast, reliable broadband. We thank both Birmingham and Wolverhampton Council for enabling us to rollout our services to their housing stock. Councils have got a huge role to play in expediting the rollout of full fibre – and with these agreements in place, we can get cracking connecting people to a whole new level of broadband experience.”

Councillor Sharon Thompson, Cabinet Member for Homes and Neighbourhoods at Birmingham City Council said “Having access to online services should be a basic right for every citizen. The pandemic showed how important it is to be able to stay in touch with loved ones and access online services during the lockdown. It highlighted that some of our most vulnerable citizens lacked access to essential computer devices and the data packages needed to support them in their day to day living. So, we welcome this investment from Hyperoptic as it provides an opportunity for our tenants to gain access to affordable connectivity.”

City of Wolverhampton Council Cabinet Member for Digital City, Obaida Ahmed, said: “The City of Wolverhampton Council is proactively supporting the rollout of futureproofed digital infrastructure as outlined in Wolverhampton’s Digital Infrastructure Strategy. By working with fixed network providers like Hyperoptic we can ensure that our residents, including Wolverhampton Homes tenants, get access to digital infrastructure that meets their future needs and opens up to them the opportunities created by being a forward-thinking digital city.”

In February 2021, Hyperoptic announced that it was partnering with Citizen, a leading housing provider in the Midlands, to roll out its hyperfast service across 5,000 of its properties.