BDUK and Gigaclear Modify Oxfordshire UK Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout

Abingdon-based broadband ISP Gigaclear, which has so far built their full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 612,000 premises (inc. 160,000 customers) across rural England, have modified their Project Gigabit roll-out contract for South Oxfordshire (Lot 13.01) – reducing its coverage target from c.5,500 to 5,034 premises and public subsidy from £17.04m to £15.49m.

Just to recap. The original contract was first awarded all the way back in November 2023 (here), which occurred jointly alongside the complementary North Oxfordshire (Lot 13.02 – c.4,200 premises) contract under the same Government programme. At the time, both were said to be aiming for build completion by November 2026. Gigaclear has since made good progress (here), deploying to 2,390 premises under Lot 13.01 and 3,220 under Lot 13.02.

However, much as we’ve said before, Project Gigabit’s contracts are not static and their scope, as well as committed levels of public funding, can change over time due to a number of different reasons (this is informed by regular ‘Open Market Reviews’ of existing UK deployment plans across all network operators). For example, commercial operators may expand or reduce their roll-out plans in the same region(s), which can reduce or grow the scope for public investment within those same contracted areas.

The contracted operator could also find the deployment to be more expensive, or possibly even cheaper, than previously envisaged. Such adjustments may occur due to changes in build costs and interest rates / inflation, as well as any unexpected obstacles to street works or greater efficiencies of build than planned or expected. Suffice to say, there can be various reasons why the contracted scope of related builds and the level of allocated public funding may change over time.

In this case, the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency appears to have corrected for a mistake on an earlier contract modification notice and also “reduced … [the] contracted scope” in accordance with the UK subsidy control regime. “The contract has been modified again resulting in an updated contract value of £15,493,563, and 5,034 premises,” said the latest notice.

The change is mild and, as explained earlier, should thus perhaps be considered somewhat par for the course with these contracts and the often tentative nature of remote rural FTTP builds.