Phase 4 of the Superfast North Yorkshire Broadband Rollout Begins UPDATE

The first rural homes to benefit from faster broadband under Phase 4 of the Superfast North Yorkshire (SFNY) project, which reflects a partnership between NYnet, a North Yorkshire County Council-owned broadband company, and UK ISP Quickline Communications, have just gone live in the village of Picton.

Just to recap. At the end of 2020 Quickline scooped the £14.5 million Phase 4 rollout contract (here), which will see them extend their “fibre-backed fixed wireless” network to bring “superfast, ultrafast and in some cases gigabit speed broadband” to a further 15,830 premises in North Yorkshire (about 93-94% of premises can currently access ‘superfast’ speeds of 24-30Mbps+ in the county).

According to the latest announcement, the first homes to benefit under Phase 4 have just gone live in the village of Picton. However, Quickline informed us last October 2021 (here) that Myers Lane (Hambleton) was already live with Sockburn, Leyburn, Beckwithshaw and Danby Wiske about to go live within the next month, with more going live each month between then and Summer 2022.

Suffice to say, the political publicity machine seems to be running a fair bit behind the pace of actual deployment. We suspect this might be because they opted to wait until Rishi Sunak, the MP for Richmond (Yorks) and UK Chancellor, was available for the official event. “This mix of technologies means everyone in Picton should have access to high-quality broadband regardless of where their home or business is situated,” said Sunak.

Sean Royce, CEO of Quickline, said:

“Gone are the days when rural areas are left behind to cope with substandard internet services. We’ve all seen what a lifeline reliable connectivity has been for many over the last 18 months, whether working from home, for home-schooling, to stay connected to family and friends or to help reduce feelings of isolation. At Quickline, we’re working hard to ensure these previously forgotten communities like Picton have access to an ultrafast broadband network they can trust. Anything less is unacceptable in the 21st century.”

Alastair Taylor, CEO of NYnet, said:

“We’re really pleased the phase four roll-out has begun following the success of the first three phases of Superfast North Yorkshire programme. This will be a gamechanger for rural businesses and residents and highlights our commitment to delivering ultrafast speeds to all of North Yorkshire.”

Naturally, we decided to test a couple of postcodes from different ends of the village to see what locals could expect, but were a little surprised by the results. A test of TS15 0AG confirmed that the network was coming to the area, but that they didn’t yet have any confirmed dates. After that, we tried TS15 0AF and were told: “We’re not currently planning to come to your area.” Not the best outcome, there.

However, when testing with postcodes in Beckwithshaw, we were given two options for residential broadband packages. The first package offered unlimited usage and ‘average’ speeds of 50Mbps (15Mbps upload) from £35 per month on a 24-month contract term, which rises to £45 per month for their top 100Mbps (25Mbps upload) tier. But on both packages you’ll also need to find £195 to cover the hefty installation fee.

Sadly, there was nothing faster than 100Mbps, which is a bit disappointing given the Government’s current focus on delivering gigabit speeds, but hopefully Quickline will be able to upgrade this in the near future in order to help meet that target. You can also add an optional Mesh WiFi system for an extra £10 per month (includes 3 repeaters).

UPDATE 20th Jan 2022

Sean Royce has told ISPreview.co.uk that, “We were so keen to announce this great news [of Picton going live] for our North Yorkshire community that our postcode checker was still in the process of being updated with the new addresses. We are delighted to say that that is also now live.” This explains why different checkers were returning different results for the same area.

Meanwhile, we’ve been informed that the build in Beckwithshaw is not a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) deployment (i.e. it’s on their fixed wireless network), and thus has different packages. The “early bird” FTTP packages in Picton start at £35 per month (£25 for the first 6 months) for a 150Mbps (15Mbps upload) service on a 24-month term with free installation, which rises to £65 per month (£55 for the first 6 months) for their top 900Mbps (90Mbps upload) service. But a £30 one-off setup fee does still apply.

Quickline said they’ll be doing a lot more FTTP builds in North Yorkshire like Picton, although it would be nice to have a rollout plan that could clearly reflect the details of all this.