ISP Vtesse Broadband UK, the new broadband arm of Vtesse Networks, a national provider of fibre optic networking services, has announced that the next 'Final Third' community to benefit from its "super-fast" broadband internet services will be the rural hamlet Broughton, near Huntingdon in Cambridge Cambridgeshire.

Local residents will be connected directly to Vtesse's national fibre optic / Fibre to the Home ( FTTH ) network, providing an almost "infinitely scalable amount of bandwidth" directly to their homes. The service, which can deliver speeds of 100Mbps or greater, uses a combination of underground and over ground fibre optic cabling.

The underground routes connect new Vtesse Broadband equipment in Broughton to the Vtesse national network and the over ground (pole) routes connect individual homes to the new services.


Vtesse's deployments across the UK now includes Fibre to the Cabinet ( FTTC ), Fibre to the Mast (wireless) and Fibre to the Home ( FTTH ) technologies. The data they get from these comparative projects will help to guide future deployments. However Vtesse was quick to warn that future expansion would be hobbled unless the UK government addressed three key failings.

1. Firstly, equitable shared access to the poles and ducts of the main utility suppliers is needed to bring the costs of deploying local fibre to down an acceptable level. It is widely perceived that this "problem" has been fixed, but the current timetable is likely to see 2 years elapse before implementation. This is clearly unacceptable to broadband deprived consumers.

2. Secondly, we need an immediate review of the "fibre taxes" recently revised and implemented by the VOA. They kill stone dead the business case for fibre to the community and fibre to the home (the Fibre Tax is well described by ISPreview UK here).

3. Thirdly, we need OFCOM to pay urgent attention to the charges levied by Openreach for sub-loop unbundling. At the moment, they just don't stack up.

As it stands Vtesse Broadband plan to turn on their new services in Broughton this Autumn. The ISP has also introduced a register for people with poor broadband performance on their website. Vtesse also recently revealed various similar projects for Final Third Communities in Hertfordshire, Wiltshire and Cornwall.

UPDATE 13th July

Corrected a mistake from the original PR where Cambridge was mentioned when they should of said Cambridgeshire.