ONE of the country‘s most remote villages is celebrating the arrival of new technology.

With thanks to Northumberland County Council’s iNorthumberland programme, superfast fibre broadband has been rolled out in Kielder.

Households and businesses in the village, which reputedly has the darkest skies in England, now have access to superfast broadband speeds as a result of a new underground network of thin strands of glass, which carry signals via laser at the speed of light.

It comes as the Government announced on Wednesday that the nationwide roll-out of the technology has now reached more than three million properties.

The iNorthumberland broadband programme is being delivered by the county council and BT.

A team of 16 engineers from BT‘s Openreach business have overcome multiple engineering challenges to reach Kielder, such as the clearing of more than 20 underground duct blockages and the removal of old redundant cable to create duct space to lay over 21km of optical fibres between Otterburn and the village.

Now more than 120 homes can take advantage of the technology.

Landlord of the Anglers Arms pub, Mike Brown, said: “We offer customers free wifi, which is a brilliant selling point for us. People flock to the pub to get online because there’s no mobile signal for a 20-mile radius.

“But with my current broadband, if there are a lot of people on it at once, it slows right down, the signal drops out and people can’t get on.

”It also means we have to wait until after the pub is closed to get online to order supplies because there’s not enough bandwidth at other times.

”Being able to order supplies online is essential, otherwise I can end up travelling thousands of miles a week because everything is so remote here.

“With fibre, I will be able to keep my customers happy, but also manage the business side of things more efficiently.”