Wiltshire Council Praise Wessex Internet’s Rural Gigabit Broadband Build Progress
The Wiltshire Council in the South of England has praised rural broadband ISP Wessex Internet for exceeding 40% of its connectivity targets under their £18.8m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit contract for South Wiltshire (Lot 30), which has so far expanded full fibre broadband to reach 7,500 premises in hard-to-reach areas.
The original contract, which was announced back in March 2024, aimed to build their 10Gbps capable FTTP broadband network to cover “around” 14,500 hard-to-reach premises in the area (here). But since then it’s expanded and is currently contracted to reach a total of 18,700 homes and businesses across South Wiltshire over the remaining years.
The operator has been making steady progress on this, which is in stark contrast to some other alternative networks that have struggled or even needed to scale-back or withdraw from their contracts completely due to wider market pressures (e.g. here, here, here, here, here and here).
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Cllr Helen Belcher said:
“We are delighted with what Wessex Internet has achieved at this early stage of the programme. Their work represents the very best of rural delivery: ambitious, collaborative, and community focused.
One of our key priorities is to ensure our communities have the infrastructure they need to thrive. Wessex Internet’s strong partnerships, commitment to public engagement, and high standards of customer service set a benchmark for others to follow.”
Hector Gibson Fleming, CEO of Wessex Internet, said:
“A brilliant milestone to hit, and a testament to the hard work on the ground.”
The deployment has now been running for over two years and is expected to continue for another three years before reaching completion.
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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