FULL fibre broadband by 2025 would boost Yorkshire and Humber economy by £3.8 billion, a report has revealed.

The new report from the Centre for Economics & Business Research also reveals that 39,000 people could be brought back into the workforce through enhanced connectivity. This could include roles within small businesses and entrepreneurs – as well as allowing thousands more people to work remotely.

It states full fibre, Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology, not only brings faster broadband speeds - download speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second (1Gbps) are available – but it’s also more reliable and will meet people’s needs for decades. It’s capable of download speeds around 18 times faster than the current UK average.

Robert Thorburn, Openreach Partnership Director, said: “This report looks at the significant economic benefit and jobs boost that having access to full fibre would create. We’re reaching 22,000 homes and businesses each week (or one every 28 seconds) in places like Leeds, and recently announced this work is coming to Sheffield, Doncaster and Bradford, as we look forward to going even further in the future."