The village and civil parish of Weaverham is one of the first locations in England’s North West to benefit from the roll-out of Freedom Fibre’s lightning-fast full-fibre broadband network. Though the initial plan had been to focus solely on Weaverham, after an enthusiastic Parish led community project, the build was extended into neighbouring village Acton Bridge.

Both communities had previously been relying on the old copper networks and had been dealing with very poor broadband speeds for years as a result.

Approximately 3,000 households in the Weaverham and Acton Bridge area have been built and are ready for service, with the build also underway in the proximate villages of Northwich, Hartford, and Comberbach.

Households and businesses can now connect to the Freedom Fibre network through the UK’s third largest internet service provider, TalkTalk, and experience broadband speeds of up to 900Mb/s. Far faster than the speeds of less than 10Mb/s some parts of the village were encountering.

This network build will allow residents to work from home, download and stream movies, game, and access the internet all at once without having to compromise on network speed.

Freedom Fibre has been working tirelessly to convert the existing copper network to full fibre, actively working towards the UK government’s target of having Gigabit broadband available nationwide by 2030. Many providers in the sector tend to build networks in larger, more densely populated areas.

However, Freedom Fibre believes wholeheartedly in its mission to make high-speed broadband available to everyone, no matter how rural the location.

While some providers may opt to install a completely new underground network, Freedom Fibre utilised the existing physical infrastructure where available to reduce disruption to residents. Freedom Fibre are committed to delivering a network to be proud of and have very quickly achieved a national ‘path to collaboration’ status with Openreach, meaning Freedom Fibre are a trusted network provider and recognised for achieving a consistently high standard of quality when utilising the Openreach network. 

Occasionally, existing infrastructure may not be available to use, and Freedom Fibre may need to either install new underground ducts or erect new telegraph poles. Whilst putting up new telegraph poles is not always the preferred approach for residents, it should be noted that they are more economical, better for the environment, and are significantly less disruptive to residents than digging up the streets for underground installation.

Speaking on Freedom Fibre’s telegraph pole ethos, CEO Neil McArthur said:

“With the government mandate, at some point the copper services will come to the end of their life, it’s not a matter of 'if' it’s 'when'. Considering the infrastructure needs to be in place for this to happen, we try very hard to reach a consensus with residents about the best location for these telegraph poles prior to us installing them, should we be unable to use the existing infrastructure”.

Northwich Guardian:

Residents in Weaverham and Acton Bridge wanting to make the move over to full-fibre connectivity can register their interest on the Freedom Fibre website (www.freedomfibre.com/connect) and will be informed of the process.

†Network availability may vary in some areas.

*Based on data from Ofcom ‘UK home broadband performance, measurement period November 2020’.