RHYL, Rhuddlan and Kinmel Bay are set to benefit from Openreach’s largest ‘hard to reach’ full fibre build

Residents in the areas will be among hundreds of thousands of Welsh homes and businesses in 45 villages, market towns and rural areas set to benefit.

Work is expected to begin on the plans in the next 12 to 18 months. The build seeks to make ultra-reliable and gigabit-capable full fibre broadband available to North Wales courtesy of an upgrade by upgraded by Openreach, without taxpayer subsidy, in the hope of boost the post-Covid economic recovery.

Welsh Government Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport Lee Waters said: “While over 95 per cent of premises in Wales can now access superfast broadband we know there is more to do to reach the final premises.

We have recently announced an extension to our roll-out with Openreach, focussing on local authority areas with less than 90 per cent coverage. This is alongside our other schemes to fund connectivity solutions for those not in any future roll-out plans.

"I welcome this announcement by Openreach which will further increase the number of premises which will be able to access full fibre, which has the potential to provide some of the fastest speeds available.”

The new Welsh locations are part of a wider project to make the new technology available to a further 3.2 million premises in the UK’s hardest to reach ‘final third’. Due to the size of the build, some places will see work continue into 2024.

The build is at the forefront of a massive £12 billion investment, which will see Openreach’s ambition to build ‘Full Fibre’ iv infrastructure to 20 million premises throughout the UK by the mid-to-late 2020s – delivering significant economic, social and environmental benefits for rural and urban communities, assuming the right regulatory and political fibre enablers are in place.

Anyone interested in seeing whether they can can use the online fibre checker at openreach.com.