NUAR transforms how Wessex Internet plans rural broadband networks

Wessex Internet is an established alt net business that connects ultrafast, full fibre broadband in some of the UK’s most rural areas. They upgrade communities across the Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Somerset countryside by installing full fibre broadband direct to homes and businesses, no matter how remote.

Wessex Internet operate in the region of 120 installation projects every year, spanning the southwest countryside from Dinton and Landford in Wiltshire to Portesham in Dorset, and from South Somerset to the New Forest. The challenge is in the geography, landscape and the often-vast scale involved in connecting communities to the network.

Wessex Internet will install full fibre broadband across distances of up to 5 kilometres and in advance of breaking ground to dig, will collate all the relevant information from different land owners, local experts and instrumentation for what lies underground between these distances.

Condensing this information into one place and trying to align varied format and scales was a time-consuming and complex challenge for Wessex Internet’s planning, network planning and field teams.

Wessex Internet was introduced to the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) platform recently, through one of the company’s Directors. NUAR is operated by Ordnance Survey (OS) on behalf of the Government and gives instant access to a map of the underground pipes and cables for authorised users in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Designed to improve the efficiency for the way buried infrastructure is installed, maintained, operated and repaired, NUAR currently provides secure access to data for over 80 per cent of all known underground infrastructure assets. It standardises the data, strengthening current safe dig practices and providing a powerful extra layer of data to augment what Wessex Internet already used.

OS held NUAR workshops with Wessex Internet internally, who discovered the platform was easy to use. It was first rolled out among Wessex Internet’s Planning Operations team, followed by network planning and rural planning teams shortly after.

Wessex Internet’s Planning teams found collating information significantly easier and more efficient because the data in NUAR is cleaner and more consistent.

A further benefit is the significant improvement in collating data from other utilities, as the NUAR platform makes the process much easier and more accessible.

Wessex Internet’s Network Planning and Design Manager, Declan Chubb, estimated due to the efficiencies NUAR brought, it saves their Planning Operations team time through its responsive nature.