To upgrade a broadband connection in Wales, Openreach had to get a line through a wooded valley and across a river. In short, it wasn’t going to happen. Either an engineer would have to risk their life wading through the water or the broadband infrastructure company would need to spend months on expensive works along the side of the road, requiring permission it might not get.
So the 20 houses were left unconnected – until one engineer at BT Group’s infrastructure arm had the clever idea to use drones, dragging the cable through the air to the tiny village, where an engineer waited to catch it.
“We got the drone up, flew the cables over the trees and river, and up the other side,” said engineer and drone pilot Gary Taylor. “We were able to give them service which otherwise we would not have been able to do… We can get a customer online within hours instead of two, three or four months – it’s a no-brainer.”
Taylor has worked for Openreach for nearly two decades, but before that he was a pilot. So when the company sought innovative solutions to long-running problems as part of its regular corporate Challenges, where staff pitch and workshop their ideas, it was only natural that
