Wireless ISP Juice Broadband Expands Reach in Dorset and Hampshire UK

Poole-based ISP Juice Broadband has announced that their fibre optic fed Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) broadband network has expanded the coverage of their 50Mbps capable service to new areas in East Dorset and West Hampshire, from a tower on St Catherines Hill near Christchurch.

The provider, which is also an approved supplier to the Government’s 2Mbps USC Better Broadband Subsidy Scheme (i.e. offering vouchers worth up to £400 to help isolated properties get a faster connection), already covers the towns of Poole and Bournemouth in Dorset. However, the new tower extends this to include Ripley, Sopley, Winkton, Avon, North Kingston, Burton, Bockhampton, Shirley, Bisterne, Matchams and Hightown. An additional tower is located in Hurn and will cover south Hurn.

Residential prices typically start from £25 per month for a 30Mbps download and 2mbps upload service with 50GB data on a 12 month contract (note: a £99 install fee is also charged and the packages include a wifi router), which rises to £49 per month for their top 50Mbps (5Mbps upload) option with unlimited usage. Various business packages are also available.

Wayne Simpson, Director of Juice Broadband, said:

“We are pleased to be bringing our service to these new areas, where internet speeds are currently way behind national average in many cases. One of the differences about our service is that our product upload and downloads speeds are actual speeds not ‘up to’ speeds.”

Interestingly Juice describe their “Fibre To The Mast” (FTTM) network as being “Ultrafast Ready,” which could suggest that they may be planning speeds of 100Mbps+ in the future. The ISP also has the ability to lay true fibre optic (FTTP/H) broadband connections with speeds of up to 1000Mbps, although this tends to be targeted more at large office or multi-tenancy buildings (no consumer pricing is available).