UPD Aylesbury Vale Council Hands FTTH Broadband Network to Gigaclear

The Aylesbury Vale District Council has handed control of Aylesbury Vale Broadband (assets / network) to UK ISP Gigaclear for an undisclosed sum, which will continue the operator’s rollout of “full fibre” (FTTH/P) ultrafast broadband services to rural villages in Buckinghamshire.

The project, which was initially supported by around £700,000 in the form of a publicly funded commercial loan from AVDC that itself acted as a 95% shareholder (most of AVBs directors work for the council), has been steadily building its network out to serve around 2,000 premises in several villages (e.g. Hoggeston, Granborough, North Marston, Swanbourne, Soulbury and Stewkley).

However over the past year or so AVB has also run into the odd overbuilding challenge with Gigaclear (here) and a local fixed wireless broadband provider or two (e.g. Village Networks), with the latter even prompting a competition complaint to the European Commission (here). Concerns over the financial stability of AVB have also been raised by various councillors (nobody ever said doing FTTH/P was cheap).

More recently some locals have criticised AVB for a lack of deployment progress and a few have demanded their deposits back. At the same time others have been frustrated by “technical” (slow speeds etc.) or support problems on the network. Suffice to say that few were surprised when we reported on 11th November that AVDC had been actively “exploring expressions of interest” in the company (here). AVB then issued the following update.

AVB Statement – 12th November 2017

Sorry for the long silence but we assure you we’re listening! We apologise that some customers are struggling with low or variable speed connections. We know it’s frustrating and promise we’re working hard to resolve the issues. As reported elsewhere, we’re in the process of restructuring the business which is a delicate exercise and ask you to bear with us a little longer while we get things back on track.

We’re concerned that some people have commented on problems contacting AVB support by telephone. We’ve looked into this and found a fault with our call handling process that meant a few calls have been missed. Again, we apologise and now we know there’s a problem we’ll fix it but, in the meantime, we’ve been responding to email support requests as normal.

Moving forward, our immediate priority is providing a stable, high performance service to existing customers before we grow the network further and we’ll be contacting customers who’ve paid deposits in due course to discuss their options. On a positive note, we have many satisfied customers and a great infrastructure that’s brought fibre broadband to rural areas in Aylesbury Vale that previously had no prospect of receiving it.

Because of the sensitivities we cannot discuss specific issues further on a public forum like this but ask that you give us just a few more weeks to secure a long-term solution.

At the time of our last article we speculated that Gigaclear might be in the frame for a deal and today’s news confirms it. On top of that AVDC has recently announced that they intend to conduct an independent inquiry into the AVB project, which will also examine the difficulties with conducting proper scrutiny of council funded schemes (here).

Janet Blake, Aylesbury Vale Broadband, said (customer email):

We are delighted to announce that we have agreed the sale of the Aylesbury Vale Broadband Ltd (AVB) network to Gigaclear plc, the leading supplier of ultrafast full fibre broadband to rural locations.

Since 2015 AVB has provided ultrafast broadband to seven Aylesbury Vale villages, but there are other local communities that AVB cannot reach without significant additional investment. Gigaclear is a company with the resources and expertise to continue the good work started by AVB and their commitment to growing the network in Aylesbury Vale was an important consideration in the shareholders’ decision to sell AVB’s assets.

We are extremely proud of everything AVB has achieved. When we started the company, our primary aim was to bring high speed broadband to rural parts of Aylesbury Vale that, otherwise, had little likelihood of being connected. We now have one of the most advanced broadband infrastructures of any rural district in the UK. Having stimulated the market, the time is right to pass the reigns on to a company with the resources to grow the network quickly and benefit many more residents. Like us, Gigaclear want to provide a great service and we’re confident they will build on the foundations that we’ve laid.

Gigaclear has purchased the assets of the business, rather than the AVB company itself, which means that you will need to sign up with Gigaclear if you want your service to continue. You will shortly receive a letter from Gigaclear explaining the next steps you will need to take. Gigaclear will keep supplying your service during the transition phase which will last until 31st January 2018. At that point, if you have not signed up to an agreement with them and given them your payment details, your current broadband service will cease.

Your Direct Debit with AVB will be cancelled with effect from 31 January 2018 and we will then remove your payment details and personal information from our records.

Gigaclear has already built a “full fibre” (FTTP/H) network in Great Brickhill, Soulbury, Botolph Claydon, Calvert Green, Marsh Gibbon, Grendon Underwood and Piddington. The ISP has also committed to “completing the network builds” by end of Q3 2018 in Stewkley, Oving, Drayton Parslow and Swanbourne (this should cover the “majority of residents” in these areas). Apparently they will then start evaluating other areas in Aylesbury Vale for a future deployment.

In terms of deposits, AVB has pledged to refund any deposits it holds for people awaiting connection to the network and “will contact you soon to arrange this“. However it’s worth noting that customers who switch to Gigaclear will find that they charge a higher price for the same service speed than AVB. On AVB the popular 100Mbps service was £38 per month and this jumps to £46.85 with Gigaclear (not factoring setup fees).

At least now locals should be able to take some comfort from the fact that the long-running uncertainty over AVB has finally been resolved and the network expansion looks set to continue.

UPDATE 2nd Jan 2018

We’ve added the following comment from Gigaclear. Apparently the sale of the business assets to Gigaclear was also agreed by a General Purposes committee meeting of the council on 20th November 2017.

Brett Shepherd, Chief Operating Officer of Gigaclear, said:

“We’re delighted to take over the infrastructure that AVB has laid to enable the local Aylesbury Vale residents to access future proofed technology. Our intention is to make this process as seamless as possible for existing customers, as well as expand our offering so more of the local community can connect to our network quickly and experience the very best broadband technology.”

UPDATE 5th Jan 2018

We understand from some AVB customers that Gigaclear has pledged to keep the monthly charge the same as AVB for 12 months.