Gigaclear Reach 2,000 Premises Passed with 1Gbps FTTP in Essex UK

Rural fibre optic ISP Gigaclear has announced that their state aid supported and 1000Mbps+ capable Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) broadband roll-out in the Epping Forest area of Essex (England) has now reached 2,000 premises passed of its 4,500 goal for the end of 2017.

The local Rural Challenge Project, which is supported by an investment of £5.5 million from Gigaclear and £2 million of public money (State Aid via Broadband Delivery UK and the Local Authorities), forms part of the wider Superfast Essex scheme that is otherwise dominated by contracts for slower services from Openreach (BT).

Joe Frost, Gigaclear’s Business Development Director, said:

“This marks our 2,000th fibre connected property passed in the area and is a real achievement for our partnership with Superfast Essex. So far, we’ve completed 80% of the trench digging, with almost 200km of ultrafast broadband fibres being installed in the region, and it’s great to see local businesses benefitting.

The service and speeds they can now access are faster than most of their competitors located in city centres. Ultrafast broadband presents them with fantastic opportunities to not only grow, but to become more relevant in this ever-connected world.”

Apparently the latest property to benefit is the Animal Country Club, and co-located Resting Pets, which both now have access to Gigabit broadband speeds. “The Gigaclear service has improved the interconnection for the whole site; we have a brand-new phone system and we can respond to our customer’s email enquiries much more quickly. It also frees up some time for us to spend with the animals as we are no longer waiting around for a connection,” said owner Margaret Gemmill.

Meanwhile the wider Superfast Essex project is currently aiming to roll-out “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) capable networks to 95% of the county by 2019 and their next Phase 3 strategy will seek to reach 97% by 2020 (details).

So far Gigaclear’s FTTP network has covered over 35,000 properties across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire, Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland and Worcestershire.