ISP Freedom Fibre Extends UK FTTP Broadband Rollout to Wales

Network builder Freedom Fibre, which is supported by broadband ISP TalkTalk, has announced their first build in Wales with the £14m rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to the city of Wrexham. Previously, the provider had tended to only focus on semi-rural parts of North England.

Many of the operator’s initial deployments have taken place in Cheshire (e.g. Weaverham, Stockton Heath, Northwich, Comberbach and Hartford etc.), although they’ve also got builds in Greater Manchester (e.g. Irlam and Cadishead) and Shropshire (e.g. Whitchurch). The operator is currently aiming to cover 70,000 premises by the end of 2022 and they also have a long-term aspiration to reach over 2 million properties.

The good news is that they’ve now extended into North Wales with a £14m project to cover the city of Wrexham – home to a population of circa 70,000. The move will see Freedom Fibre compete against a number of other gigabit-capable broadband networks in the same area, such as those from Openreach, Virgin Media (VMO2), ITS Technology and Netomnia (YouFibre).

Marie Danby, Customer Operations Director at Freedom Fibre, said:

“We’re so excited to see work starting on this digital project in Wrexham. Our full fibre network will support residents to enjoy unbeatable connectivity within the home and create innovation opportunities for local businesses.

We would like to take this opportunity to re-assure the local community that our network rollout is designed to cause minimal disruption – using existing infrastructure wherever possible. However, any short-term disruption will pay off tremendously in the long-term so please bear with us.”

At present, there’s no information on precisely how many premises will benefit, which areas will go live first or how long it will take to actually deploy.