Connect Fibre Preps 10Gbps FTTP Network for Cambridgeshire UK
A new UK ISP called Connect Fibre (Fibre Assets Ltd.) has today announced its presence to the industry and that comes alongside their goal of becoming Cambridgeshire’s “first open access full fibre broadband” operator, although strictly speaking Openreach (BT) and Cityfibre may have already taken that crown.
At present we know very little about Connect Fibre, although the provider informs ISPreview.co.uk that they’ve already completed a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) build to the small East Cambridgeshire village of Reach, which is home to a population of just 360 people. The ISP claims that this was “welcomed by residents and has a healthy take-up rate,” although specific figures aren’t stated.
The network they’ve built is described as being based around a “sophisticated full stack open access software system,” which will utilise ADTRAN’s seemingly quite popular XGS-PON equipment. Assuming the capacity exists then this should be able to offer wholesale broadband with symmetrical speeds of up to 10Gbps.
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The deployment into Reach was built using section 50 permissions, although Connect Fibre has now put in new application for Code Powers from Ofcom, which may help to speed-up their roll-out of new fibre and to cut costs by reducing the number of licenses needed for street works. At the time of writing we’ve yet to see this document but it’s expected at any moment and we’ll update again if it contains any extra details.
Stefan Stanislawski, MD of Connect Fibre, told ISPreview.co.uk:
“The team is used to building fibre in London so deploying in Reach presented some new challenges, but both construction and sales processes went well. Residents even complimented us on the considerate nature of the construction.”
The Reach network already has a local ISP partner in Air Broadband (anchor tenant) and Connect Fibre said that they intend to expand further into East Anglia, as well as to test certain Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile service innovations over the coming year. Sadly Air Broadband doesn’t show any public packages / prices on their website and seems to lack a coverage checker (at least none that we could see at the time of writing).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I would love for at least one Alternative Operator to express interest in Canterbury. Once again I’m reading about a location with excellent fttp coverage, being served with even more and as others are saying this over-saturation is not helpful.
Canterbury, like Cambridge, York, Bath, etc, is a university town, in fact we have three large unis. I was fortunate to have FTTC for all of my uni days a couple of years ago. However, many of my fiends renting only had ADSL available. This has mostly changed now.
However, Canterbury has not a drop of FTTP delivery or which is thoroughly disappointing. Yet the town makes so much sense for a roll-out.