CONNECTING Cumbria has overcome a major technical challenge to make high-speed fibre broadband available to thousands more Cumbrian customers.

The innovation will see almost 25,000 Cumbrian homes and businesses able to move to the outside lane of the superfast broadband highway in the next 12 months. Until now, they have been unable to get the high-speed technology because of being served by lines directly from the telephone exchange, rather than via a roadside cabinet.

By rearranging the existing network and installing extra cabinets to serve affected customers, engineers from BT’s local network business, Openreach, have been able to overcome the problem.

The first customers to benefit are in Milnthorpe where the first 160 of 1,900 premises in the village now have access to fibre broadband after a 15-kilometre fibre spine was installed to feed the village.

More than 60 Openreach engineers are working in Cumbria on overcoming the “exchange only” lines challenge. The fibre technology means download speeds of up to 80 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20 Mbps will be available to a further 25,000 premises in 120 locations.