Update on Gigaclear’s FTTP Rollout Plan for Devon and Somerset

Rural full fibre broadband ISP Gigaclear has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that they are now in the final stages of piecing together the next phase of a revised commercial rollout plan for Devon and Somerset (England). Assuming all goes to plan then this could be finalised before the end of Q1 2020.

Readers will recall that the provider suffered a major setback after the Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) project scrapped their state aid supported contract to deploy a Gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across remote parts of both counties (here). Gigaclear made some big mistakes in their management and planning, which delayed the local rollout by up to 2 years and in the end CDS lost confidence.

Sadly the situation left a number of communities with unfinished FTTP deployments and also forced the ISP to begin a review of their separate, but once complementary to the CDS plan, commercial roll-out in the region. As part of that commercial plan the operator had originally proposed to invest £67.3m in order to cover 43,000 premises across rural parts of Devon and Somerset.

The good news is that the outcome from Gigaclear’s review of their commercial plans in the South West will soon be known and it might bring some positive news.

Jo Scarrott, Regional Manager for Gigaclear South West, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“Gigaclear have built over 7000 POTS across the South West region and are continuing to build within the region. We are currently concluding the planning and design of our next phase of commercial network build for the coming year. We are aiming to have our build plans finalised over the next 3 months which will allow us to inform those residents who are included.

Residents can continue to register their interest and check service availability on our website, which will be updated with our next phase of build as soon as we can.”

The big question now is whether or not Gigaclear will have to scale-back their original commercial deployment target. Likewise some locals in affected areas will also want to know whether the ISP intends to go back and complete at least some of their unfinished FTTP builds in the region.

We know that in some areas, such as across the Bigbury Parish in Devon, Gigaclear has already completed a “significant amount of installation work” and is keen to get a financial return for those efforts. In keeping with that the local council has given some indication (here) that there may be positive news in the near future, which might bode well for other part-built areas too (Credits to Steve for spotting).