UK ISP Rutland Telecom (RT) has announced that the small rural village of Hambleton (Leicestershire), in the middle of Rutland Water, will soon become the first to benefit from its new deployment of "super-fast" fibre optic Fibre-to-the-Premises ( FTTP / FTTH ) broadband internet access technology.

Residents in the area currently suffer from poor download speeds that average just 0.7Mbps. By contrast RT are offering a 50Mbps service to residential properties for £50 per month (25GB usage allowance) or £100 (250GB) for businesses. Download speeds of up to 1000Mbps (1Gbps) are also available through the infrastructure, albeit not immediately.


RT claims that its efforts will give Hambleton the "fastest rural village broadband in the UK", although it'll have to beat Fibrestream's similarly capable FTTH service in Ashby de la Launde (Lincolnshire) first (here). Customers will also be able to run their phone service over the fibre and save by cancelling any BT line rental.

It should be noted that the minimum cost of installation will be £1000 +VAT, which includes legal costs of a wayleave agreement (a wayleave agreement is a terminable licence for which you pay an annual rent and compensation). That's fairly expensive for most folk, albeit not a million miles from the first-time cost of an inferior Satellite solution.