GibFibreSpeed Bring 10Gbps FTTH Broadband to 60-70 Percent of Gibraltar

Some 60-70% of Gibraltar, which is a British overseas territory that sits on the southern end of Spain’s Iberian Peninsula in the Mediterranean sea, is now within reach of an ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/B) broadband network thanks to local ISP GibFibreSpeed (A.J. Sheriff Electrical Ltd.).

We first touched on the ISP’s plan to transform Gibraltar’s local connectivity all the way back in 2014 (here) and since then they’ve managed to expand their 10Gbps capable fibre optic network to cover 60-70% of the area, with take-up running at around 15-20% (GibFibreSpeed says that Gibraltar is home to a total of about 17,000 potential clients, both residential and business).

The progress is impressive and appears to be giving local rivals (e.g. Gibtelecom), which have generally preferred to deploy slower ADSL2+ and Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) based technologies (the latter is similar to FTTC [VDSL] in the UK), a run for their money.

Julian Sheriff, GibFibreSpeed, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“As the previous service was ADSL and FTTN before GibFibreSpeed came about, clients have noticed a huge upgrade in their internet speeds. We have also added to our offering Gibsat Fibre TV and IPTV services delivered via our fibre network using our home router.

Our future plans are to have all of GIbraltar FTTH ready and incorporate Broadband, TV and Telephone services. We are currently offering Broadband & TV (Gibsat – part of our group of companies, holds around 80% market share). We are encouraging the take up of Broadband & TV via GibFibreSpeed to get all our clients under one roof, the changeover will take time though.”

All of this is in stark contrast to the rest of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), where ultrafast FTTH/P connections are still in the extreme minority. On the other hand Gibraltar is a very different place.

Most of the land on Gibraltar, which equates to approximately 6.84 square kilometres, is already well developed (like a mini city state) and shared between the military and civil interests. The percentage of undeveloped land is thus very small when you exclude the rocky cliffs and slopes, which means that it’s possible to reach a lot of premises (%) via a smaller investment.

Sadly GibFibreSpeed wouldn’t tell us precisely how much they’d invested to reach their current level of network coverage, although they did confirm that it has been “expensive!“. But then that’s usually true of practically all FTTH networks.

Otherwise the packages for home users generally start at £10 per month for a basic unlimited 10Mbps (2Mbps upload) connection, which doesn’t attract a separate line rental charge or an installation fee and adds a Fibre TV service. Meanwhile the top home package gives you 100Mbps (20Mbps upload) and a bunch of extras for just £35 per month, although we’re told that a 200Mbps [25Mbps upload] package also exists.

Elsewhere their business focused packages go up to 10Gbps (symmetrical), with more affordable options also available for home workers and small businesses.