Openreach transforms connectivity across Dorset

Openreach has connected over 85,000 premises to broadband across Dorset after completion of its ultra and superfast rollouts in the area, in collaboration with Dorset Council.

After 11 years and £23.6m, the council is marking the end of its rollouts, which has also seen an additional £5.3m returned to the county as part of a 'cash back' deal with Openreach.     

Among the businesses to benefit is The Etches Collection Museum of Jurassic Marine Life in Kimmeridge, and the new gigabit-capable full fibre broadband helped it to cope with the ten-fold increase in visitors it experienced in 2024.   

As Carla Crook, Operations Director explained: “When we opened in 2016, there was only dial-up internet in the village which was so slow it would take 4 hours to upload a YouTube video.”

When Openreach arrived in Kimmeridge to rollout full fibre funded by the government, Dorset Council and Dorset Local Economic Partnership (LEP), Etches Museum switched to full fibre service.   

Crook added: “It was fortunate that we did because not long afterwards the David Attenborough programme about our Pliosaur skull discovery hit the airwaves and our visitor numbers rocketed.”   

Etches Museum saw its visitor numbers hit 11,000 in January 2024 alone after the programme aired. Altogether, the museum welcomed nearly 70,000 visitors last year.

Dorset Council’s fibre contracts were awarded to Openreach in 2013, 2015 and 2017, thanks to £11.6m investment from the government, £10 million from Dorset Council and its predecessor councils and £2 million from Dorset LEP.  

As part of the contract, it was agreed that the broadband supplier would ‘pay back’ money to the council when it reached its targets of people taking out an improved broadband service using the new connection.   

State-funded broadband rollouts in Dorset are now being delivered by Project Gigabit, connecting around 20,000 premises that were not included in any commercial plans.