KCOM’s FTTP Broadband Roll-out in Hull UK Reaches 100,000 Premises

Good news for East Yorkshire. KCOM’s on-going deployment of their new ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) dominated “Lightstream” broadband network in Hull has now reached 100,000 local homes and businesses (premises passed), which is up sharply from 78,000 in May 2016.

The network received a big boost earlier this year after KCOM extended their roll-out plan, with the aim being to reach 150,000 premises by December 2017. As a result residential customers are able to benefit from download speeds of ‘up to’ 250Mbps and so far take-up has tended to hover at around the 30% mark (the network is also 1Gbps+ capable for businesses).

The deployment also remains dominated by their ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP/H) technology, although around 8% of the roll-out is expected to use the slower (up to 75Mbps) and cheaper Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) technology in order to reach some of the more challenging premises (here).

Otherwise KCOM’s capital expenditure for the next two financial years’ is expected to be “greater than” £40 million per annum, which largely reflects the increased fibre investment and is partly being fuelled by the earlier sale of their UK fibre assets to Cityfibre for £90m (excluding East Yorkshire). We should add that the new network comprises more than 4,000km of fibre optic cabling.

Matt Hancock, Minister of State for Digital and Culture, said:

“The UK is a European leader when it comes to superfast broadband coverage, but we want to stay ahead of the competition. It’s great to see KCOM’s investment and innovation in rolling out ultrafast broadband across Hull and East Yorkshire – their investment will help make sure the UK remains a world leading digital economy.”

Gary Young, KCOM’s Managing Director, said:

“We’re delighted to have reached this important milestone in our plans to make Hull the UK’s Ultrafast city. Over the months ahead we’ll be making Lightstream available to tens of thousands of households and businesses in areas right across our network.

Research has shown that access to Ultrafast broadband is vital to business and economic success in the UK and we’re proud that this region is leading the way.”

Once completed the current deployment, which should cost about £60 million (total capital investment) or roughly £400 per premises, will have made KCOM’s fibre optic based broadband available to “approximately three-quarters” of their total network footprint. At that point we wouldn’t be surprised to see another extension to help reach those in the final quarter, provided enough investment can be found.

However KCOM is no longer the only game in town, with MS3 (connectHull) having just started the roll-out of their own 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) network in some of the same parts of Hull (here and here). At this stage MS3 don’t pose a huge threat, but that may change as their footprint expands. The extra competition is sure to be welcomed in a city where KCOM has traditionally been one of the only options for home users.