Gigaclear and Carillion telent to Rollout 1Gbps Broadband in South West England

Rural fibre optic ISP Gigaclear has signed a new £200m contract with civil engineering giant Carillion telent, which will help to support the rollout of their 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) ultrafast broadband network to more than 80,000 premises in rural South West England.

Gigaclear already has a number of on-going deployments in that part of the country, not least of which is their huge state aid supported contract for Devon and Somerset (here). Typically such large deployments have required the ISP to scale-up their operations and often the quickest way to do that is by involving a major contractor. The provider recently did a similar deal with Complete Utilities for Gloucestershire and Herefordshire (here).

Apparently Carillion telent will be implementing Gigaclear’s “full fibre” network by using narrow trenching technology (the same as in their Complete Utilities deal), which essentially involves machinery that digs a much smaller trench for the optical fibre cables (i.e. faster and cheaper to deploy).

The work on this new contract will start immediately, with the first customers coming on stream early in 2018 and the full rollout due to complete by the end of 2019.

Brett Shepherd, Gigaclear’s Chief Operating Officer, said:

“This new contract with Carillion telent will enable Gigaclear to roll out the latest and very best broadband technology to tens of thousands of households and businesses across the South West.

Our investment in full fibre not only brings the area into the 21st Century, it stands as an example of the kind of futureproofed technology that is vital to ensure the continued development of the UK’s digital economy.”

Stephen Sullivan, MD of Carillion telent, added:

“Carillion telent is delighted to have been awarded the contract by Gigaclear to deliver its ultrafast pure fibre broadband to the Premise (FTTP) project in the South West region. Carillion telent has been providing civils, cabling and poling infrastructure solutions within the telecoms arena since 2009 and boasts in excess of 35 years combined experience.

We are delighted to support a project that will be both socially and economically transformative for the community by delivering speeds up to 28 times faster than the UK average.”

The Carillion telent (60:40) joint venture is a familiar one on these pages as they’ve also been working with Openreach (BT) for a very long time (8-year+ partnership) and recently extend that for another 3 years (here), although the civil engineering firm has recently had a few concerns with net debt and pensions (here).

The press release doesn’t say it, although we understand from Carillion telent directly that the contract with Gigaclear is expected to generate revenue of up to £200 million for the Joint Venture between 2018 and 2020. It’s worth pointing out that the Phase 2 Connecting Devon and Somerset project includes a c.£70m investment (here and here).