Gigaclear Hand West Oxfordshire Broadband Contract to Lite Access

Rural fibre optic ISP Gigaclear has handed the civil engineering contract for deploying their 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network to 10,000 premises in West Oxfordshire (England) to Lite Access (international contractor). The rollout is due to complete by the end of 2019.

The deployment in West Oxfordshire was finalised last October and actually reflects two agreements (here). The first project is an £8m plan to bring full fibre to 4,600 properties in the region, which is jointly funded by the West Oxfordshire District Council and Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) to the tune of £3.1m (public investment), with Gigaclear adding £5m from their own pockets.

On top of that Gigaclear are also investing a further £8m to connect another 5,700 homes in the area, linking existing networks together and extending their already significant footprint in the district. Once both are completed then, when combined with existing networks, it’s anticipated that over 99% of premises in the district will be able to get “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) or significantly faster.

Under today’s deal Lite Access will carry out all civil engineering work and installation of the fibre cables, using modern techniques such as narrow trenching (this has the ability to trench in excess of 200 metres a day).

Brett Shepherd, Gigaclear COO, said:

“This new contract will enable Gigaclear to continue to roll out world class broadband, this time to homes and businesses in West Oxfordshire, using the very latest installation technology and equipment.

Due to their experience deploying similar projects throughout rural Canada, Lite Access Technologies is the ideal partner for Gigaclear. This represents a fantastic opportunity to work with a really innovative construction partner and we are really looking forward to bringing ultrafast, reliable broadband to the residents of West Oxfordshire.”

Dylan Griffiths, Managing Director of Lite Access UK, added:

“Lite Access UK is delighted to have been awarded the contract by Gigaclear. It gives us a great platform to utilise our years of experience of similar fibre deployment projects in rural Canada. It is also an opportunity for us to demonstrate the full capabilities of our unique, customised cutting blades and attachments which have been specially redesigned for micro duct deployment in the UK to deliver ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises broadband.”

The build with Lite Access is currently due to commence in the Langford and Great Tew areas in the “coming months” (technically it actually began last year, albeit with a different contractor).