Gigaclear Set Contractor Woes Aside as Sevenoaks Gets 1Gbps Broadband

The Sevenoaks Prep School in Kent (England) has become one of the first customers to benefit from Gigaclear’s new Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) broadband network, which as part of the local and slightly delayed Underriver Project can now deliver speeds of up to 1000Mbps (Megabits per second) to local homes and businesses.

The new Underriver network, which began construction during April 2014 and involves an investment of around £2 million, is intended to make Gigaclear’s ultrafast fibre optic broadband connectivity available to 2,000 premises (here).

The first phase of the build for the Wildernesse Estate, Blackhall Lane, Godden Green and Underriver was expected to be complete by early July 2014, while a second phase covering Bitchet Green, Stone Street, Ivy Hatch, Plaxtol, Ightham Common and Shipbourne was supposed to be finished by the end of the summer.

But ISPreview.co.uk understands that the project hit a few snags between July and August after the Highways Authority for Kent County Council found that the works carried out by contractors were not up to the correct standard, which meant Gigaclear had to bring on-board some new people to fix the old work and complete the project. At the time Gigaclear warned that this could delay full completion until November or December, although the good news is that the first customers are now going live.

Alan Chant, Head of ICT at Sevenoaks Prep School, said:

“As an experiment we were able to run 50 concurrent YouTube videos when the Gigaclear service went live – most in HD – without a hiccup. More importantly our online learning applications now all load and run instantly so our pupils can get more from their lesson time.”

Matthew Hare, CEO of Gigaclear, added:

“We are on the verge of a revolution in the way we all learn, enabled by the Internet. At school, at work and at home, fast, symmetric broadband such as provided by Gigaclear will give us the opportunity to take advantage of new remote learning opportunities throughout our lives. Gigaclear is proud to be a part of this revolution.”

Gigaclear will also be hosting 2 demonstration days at the school on Saturday 25th October and Saturday 15th November, which will help to showcase the advantages of their new FTTH/P service to the local residents and parents. Previously the best that locals could hope for was a handful of Megabits via BT’s older copper line infrastructure.

The ISPs packages start at £37 inc. VAT per month (includes line rental) for a symmetrical 50Mbps connection with unlimited usage and the needed Gigabit capable router (those who want 1000Mbps will pay £69 per month). A £100 one-off connection fee must also be applied.