“Would you like to be interviewed next week?” “Yes? What’s it for?” “Can’t tell you, someone will be in touch…”
After some initial cloak and dagger conversations, this month we were lucky enough to be chosen as Openreach’s local case study.
As you may know, our main office is based in the centre of Salisbury. The exciting thing is that Openreach has just announced that Salisbury will be the first city to be fully installed with ultra fast broadband. That means over 20,000 homes and businesses will have fibre cables fully connected, no more copper cables! This directly impacts our business, for the better! The new ultra fast broadband roll-out will initially be offering 300Mb/s which will soon be closer to 1Gb/s.
I was asked if I could do an interview to a national newspaper and possibly have some filming done. I said, “yes, of course”… not really knowing what I let myself in for. The day of filming came, and what I thought would be a quick interview on camera was actually a half day with a production team. Filming myself and demoing our products, in particular our driving software with the Atomic A3 motion chair. This was a whole new experience for me, and I have to say I enjoyed every minute of it. It was strange to be in front of the camera, instead of being behind the scenes as part of a production team.
Well… here’s the final film…
Through this experience I got to meet different members of the Openreach team, and I have to say they were all great. We had great chats to Clive Selley, the CEO and Kim Mears, Managing Director of Strategic Infrastructure Development, both of whom saw the benefits of our game based learning offerings.
And then there was the official launch…
A VIP was arranged to be a part of the Salisbury launch, we knew it was a high level MP, but because of security no one was told who it was going to be. The current political climate meant it was touch and go whether the VIP would actually be able to make it or not. The morning of launch day we were told, YES, the VIP would be available and turned out to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, Phillip Hammond.
It was a pleasure to have a meeting with the Chancellor and John Glen, MP for Salisbury, to discuss the impact of Ultra Fast Broadband as well as our business.
All of the Openreach comms team we worked with were fantastic. Our main contact, Sally Bell, Head of External Comms for Openreach (South), did an incredible job of synchronising so many elements that had to fall into place perfectly. It was a pleasure working with you.
What an amazing opportunity and it all originated from a simple “Yes”, not really knowing what it would lead to!
Read the Press Release here: https://news.openreach.co.uk/pressreleases/salisbury-to-become-the-first-uk-city-with-universal-access-to-openreachs-future-proof-full-fibre-broadband-technology-2849114
Read more about the Openreach launch in Salisbury here: https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/news/salisbury
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