Somerset Village of Priddy to Get Superfast Wireless Broadband via Voneus

Residents of Priddy on the Mendip Heights in rural Somerset (England), where around 671 people currently receive fixed line broadband speeds of anything between 1-5Mbps, might soon benefit from superfast speeds of ‘up to’ 100Mbps via a new network from UK ISP Voneus.

The Voneus approach will involve running a pure fibre optic cable into the heart of the village, which will then connect to a wireless distribution point at the local village hall or church. After that residents who opt to take the service will be able to receive it by having a small “Voneus Microwave Receiver” installed on top of their homes

The cost of installation looks set to be met by the regional Connecting Devon and Somerset voucher scheme, which is offering a subsidy worth up to £500 per property to help those in slow broadband areas to get a faster service installed. Apparently Voneus will be aiming to get the first wireless infrastructure in place by the end of January or early February 2017.

Gary Day, Voneus Sales Director, said:

“We have made the decision to go ahead with the project despite falling a little short on meeting our minimum requirements on participants [ISPr ED: They originally requested for at least 65 premises to commit support], so if you happen to know of a neighbour or friend in Priddy that wishes to receive Voneus faster broadband please have them contact our sales team via sales@voneus.com.

A special thank you to Barry Wilkinson and Kate Greet alongside the rest of the Parish Council in making this happen. We are now busy planning the network and our team of planners will be making further visits to Priddy in preparation of rolling out the network.

Due to the nature of our network, we need to have a core infrastructure in place before we can start to expand and grow out the rest of the network, and so we will introduce a ‘phasing’ system so as to establish the order in which we need to build. This will be dictated by where our network begins and we will update you as to which ‘phase’ you are in and how this affects when you are able to have installation when we have completed further surveys.”

Readers with a keen eye will recall that Priddy was originally selected to take part in the Government’s Market Test Pilot (MTP) for an alternative Satellite broadband network (here), but locals weren’t terribly interested in the idea of an inferior Satellite network and the area was ultimately removed from the project.

So far it seems as if that was a good decision because not only is Priddy going to benefit from a faster wireless network, but it may also be reached by Gigaclear’s future FTTP roll-out (here). However the latter has yet to be confirmed and the presence of Voneus could potentially change Gigaclear’s future roll-out plan.

Assuming all goes to plan then locals will soon be taking the service via one of two package options. Prices start at £20 inc VAT per month for a 20GB usage allowance or £34.99 for unlimited usage, on top of that there’s usually a £149.99 installation fee (anybody with a voucher should be covered for this). However real-world speeds are likely to fall a bit lower than the 100Mbps maximum, but residents have been promised that it will deliver at least 24Mbps+.