Around 1,500 people live in Castle Hedingham, a close-knit rural community that’s steeped in history. It has a famous castle linked to William the Conqueror and was referenced in the Domesday Book – but was hardly referenced in full fibre rollout plans drawn up by national broadband providers.
Enter County Broadband – a specialist provider of rural full fibre networks in the East of England.
Like Castle Hedingham, we are based in Essex, although we were founded at the start of the 21st century rather than the 12th century. But also in keeping with Castle Hedingham, we had a deep desire to connect the village to future-ready gigabit speeds and superior network reliability.
Rural challenges
With an ageing population, medieval properties presenting interesting design and engineering challenges for the installation of new infrastructure, and understandable scepticism around the unknown concept of full fibre and gigabit speeds that never cut out, our dedicated teams on the ground faced some barriers that we were determined to overcome.
We worked hard to engage and work with local leaders, residents and businesses to tell them about the County Broadband story and what full fibre would bring to their community. Our teams carried out this community engagement entirely in person, such was the poor quality of the village’s pre-existing copper-based Superfast broadband.
Over time, we built trusting relationships and became universally regarded as a key village ally.
Volunteering and community support
Across our rollout, we have been proud to deliver wide-ranging support for our local communities, tailored to their needs thanks to the close engagement, research and dedication of our local teams.
Castle Hedingham was no different. Our volunteering and community support included:
- A full and professional refurbishment of an old telephone box that had been previously converted to a defibrillator box. Our work included cleaning, sanding and painting
- Free drop-in Q&A sessions to help resolve computer and other digital problems for residents
- Litter picks regularly carried out by the team
Castle Hedingham Bowls Club
Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2024, the Castle Hedingham Bowls Club is an integral part of village life, with Women’s, Men’s and Mixed teams regularly entering national leagues.
That’s why we were eager and thrilled to support the Club during our construction phases. Our package of support included:
- Free connection to our full fibre network
- A charity grant to help build a new canopy roof for the Club via our separate Hypercharged Foundation registered charity
- Pitch and programme advertising worth hundreds of pounds per year
- A Refer-a-Friend initiative which also raised hundreds of pounds for the Club
Our collaboration with individuals going above and beyond their role, combined with a truly community-based and personalised support, was celebrated across the business. It also set a new company expectation that proudly sits under our ‘caring for the communities we serve’ ethos.
Full fibre broadband, also known as Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTP), is the installation of fibre optic cables directly into premises. The new large-scale full fibre broadband infrastructure provides speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps (gigabit-capable) which is 11 times quicker than current copper superfast networks. Full fibre can also be upgraded to 10,000 Mbps in the future and provides vastly superior network reliability due to the technology of the fibre optic cables.
In contrast, copper-based superfast connections are based on Fibre-To-The-Cabinet (FTTC) Victorian technology in which fibre cables are sent to roadside cabinets and distributed via copper cabling.
In total, County Broadband is designing, building and deploying full fibre broadband in over 250 villages and market towns across the East of England, backed by a combined £146 million of private investment from Aviva Investors, to help drive local economic growth and provide reliable access to modern online services in response to rising demand in rural and remote areas.
Whether you’re a resident or business, find out if you’re covered in County Broadband’s full fibre rollout by entering your postcode at www.countybroadband.co.uk where you can also register your interest in finding out more about the infrastructure and service.
