BT Confirm North Swindon Fibre Broadband Rollout to 6,500 Premises

Openreach (BT) has announced that their up to 80Mbps FTTC and 330Mbps FTTP broadband network will be extended to cover 6,500 premises in the Priory Vale part of North Swindon (Wiltshire), which should add further competition for cable operator Virgin Media and wireless ISP UKB Networks.

BT has already deployed their “ultrafast” Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology to around 500 premises in the Haydon Wick (North Swindon) and nearby Taw Hill areas (here), which was part of an initial trial. Today’s news confirms that some 1,000 of the 6,500 extra premises will also be getting access to their FTTP network.

Apparently the building work will start as soon as next month, with the service then becoming available by next Spring 2017.

Kim Mears, Openreach’s MD for Infrastructure, said:

“We’re delighted to be rolling-out fibre to every home and business in Priory Vale.

We’ve already enjoyed a very successful trial of ‘plug-and-play’ FTTP technology and now have decided to carry out further major investment to expand our superfast and ultrafast broadband networks in this area.

Having good fast connectivity to the internet is vital. It helps business to move, act and trade quickly and effectively. It enables schoolchildren to access their homework online, helps provide care for our elderly, as well as offering better access to e-commerce, social media and home entertainment. For all of these things, fast broadband is essential and Priory Vale will now be able to enjoy the benefits.”

Justin Tomlinson MP said:

“This is a fantastic and vital announcement. For years I’ve worked with fellow local residents to push for access to superfast fibre broadband and we know from the successful pilots, demand will be very, very strong. It is a credit to BT that they have worked with us to deliver this solution, a real welcome boost to our local community.”

The move represents another challenge to the local authority’s controversial £1.9m state aid supported Broadband Delivery UK contract with UKB Networks, which is rolling out a “superfast” 24Mbps+ capable 4G fixed wireless network to 19,500 premises (13,000 in rural areas) in much of the same area.

Originally the council claimed that the deal was necessary because neither of the two big operators (BT and Virgin Media) had allegedly showed much interest in upgrading the local fixed line infrastructure, although this was before Virgin went public with their major £3bn Project Lightning expansion last year.

But all of that changed earlier this month when Virgin Media confirmed a commercial plan to expand their network to another 7,000 premises in the town (they already cover around 65,000), which will also be delivered by using DOCSIS over 300Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) lines; this too is due to finish during early 2017.

On top of that we now have today’s announcement from BT, which is another commercial deployment and will place further pressure on the UKB Networks model. It’s just a shame that neither BT nor Virgin seemed able to do all this a few years ago.