UPDATE Gigaclear and West Oxfordshire in New 1Gbps Broadband Rollout Deal

Earlier this year Gigaclear “regretfully decided to withdraw” from the West Oxfordshire Superfast Broadband project, which followed a dispute with their supplier ITS Technology Group (here). But the good news is that the ISP has signed a new deal to rollout FTTP broadband to 10,000+ rural premises.

The original Cotsworlds Broadband CIC project was acquired by Gigaclear nearly two years ago after initially being established by Hugo Pickering. The old deal envisaged a deployment to around 6,000 premises in the county, which would have completed by May 2017. Funding for this came via a £1.6m (grant) from the Government, as well as £1.6m in the form of a loan from the West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) and £3.2m of private investment through Gigaclear.

Unfortunately those plans appeared to collapse in January 2017 after Gigaclear revealed that they had run into some unspecified “issues” with their supplier. Shortly after that both Gigaclear and the ITS Technology Group issued a joint statement to announce that their contract had been terminated by mutual agreement. At the time none of the public funding had been spent.

The outcome resulted in WODC beginning a new Open Market Review (OMR) and procurement effort in order to find a new supplier. Back then there was a strong suspicion that the outcome of this would result in another deal with Gigaclear, which usually prefers to use their own contractors (i.e. no involvement from ITS Tech). As a result few readers will be surprised by today’s news.

WODC Statement

The Council is delighted to announce that we signed contracts with Gigaclear to bring ultrafast broadband to the most rural parts of West Oxfordshire.

The contract will see more than 4,600 homes and businesses that are still without superfast broadband connected with ‘Fibre to the Premises’, giving them broadband with speeds of up to 1,000Mbps (1Gps).

The rollout will begin during November 2017 and will be complete by the end of 2019. By this time well over 99% of premises in the district will be able to get superfast broadband.

The confirmation came just after end-of-play on Friday and so far there doesn’t appear to be any information about the deal on Gigaclear’s website (a press release is expected on Monday). Likewise the update contains no detail on the new funding levels or split (we are asking), although the local authority has sent out a picture of all the players, which is nice. But we’ve now learnt that a second rollout has also been confirmed (skip below the picture).

UPDATE 30th October 2017

The WODC has now issued their official press release, which reveals that there are actually two agreements with Gigaclear (one through WODC and the other a commercial investment) and as a result 10,000+ premises will benefit. Yesterday we only covered the WODC deal.

Essentially the first project is an £8m plan to bring full fibre to 4,600 properties, jointly funded by WODC and Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) to the tune of £3.1m, with Gigaclear adding £5m from their own pockets.

On top of that Gigaclear has announced that it is investing a further £8m to connect another 5,700 homes in the area, linking existing networks together and extending the provider’s already significant footprint in the district.

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

“We’re delighted to expand our footprint in West Oxfordshire, not only through our contract with WODC and the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) rural broadband programme, but also through our own commercial investment.

Broadband is no longer just nice to have, it is a vital utility. Full fibre is the only future proofed solution, so by working with the District Council, Gigaclear is helping to secure the area’s digital economy.”

Cllr Colin Dingwall, Cabinet Member for Broadband at WODC, said:

“Ultrafast broadband is essential for individuals and businesses in the area so we’re pleased that, through the contract with Gigaclear, we can see this investment through.

Oxfordshire is known as the UK’s leading centre for innovation and we want to make sure we have the infrastructure to support this.”