Gigaclear Celebrates 5 Years of 1Gbps FTTP Broadband in Oxfordshire UK

Fibre optic broadband provider Gigaclear has this month marked the fifth anniversary of their ultrafast 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) network going live in the rural villages of Appleton and Eaton (Oxfordshire), which were among the first in England to get their service.

Today some 10,000 homes and businesses in the county have been covered by the ISP’s “full fibre” network (rising to over 50,000 across the whole of England with more than 10,000 subscribed) and the business has also grown from a starting point of five employees in 2012 to a whopping 180 now.

Going forward Gigaclear hopes to reach 150,000 rural premises by around 2020, which is being supported by a mix of public investment via Government / local authority contracts and a recent boost of new equity funding worth £111 million (here).

Matthew Hare, CEO of Gigaclear, said:

“It all came about from sheer frustration. Residents and businesses in rural parts of the county were simply unable to access the Internet services they wanted, and were struggling to find a provider who could give them what they wanted. When I explained what Gigaclear could do for Appleton with Eaton, they agreed to take a leap of faith with us, an unknown, new company.

It was inspiring to see villagers grouping together to push the project forward, working with us to persuade enough of their neighbours to commit to taking the service so we could make the investment without the community having to pay towards the build costs.

Now, five years later, it’s great to see how far they have come. From new thriving businesses to less commuting to a much wider choice of entertainment at home, Ultrafast broadband has made a dramatic difference to the local economy and community. Happy fifth Giga-birthday Appleton!”

Gigaclear itself was founded in December 2010 by Matthew Hare, although it didn’t really crop up on our radar until mid-2011 when they merged Rutland Telecom into their business via a new partnership. At the time Rutland Telecom had just begun to move away from building SLU based ADSL / VDSL (FTTC) street cabinets and, alongside Gigaclear, they built their first ever FTTP network in Hambleton (Rutland). Appleton, Eaton and Besselsleigh in Oxfordshire were the next in line.