CALA Agrees FTTP Partnership with Hyperoptic in West Scotland

Property developer CALA Homes has today signed a new partnership agreement with “full fibre” (FTTP/B) UK ISP Hyperoptic, which will result in residents of CALA’s new build home developments in West Scotland being offered “day one access to gigabit broadband speeds“.

Apparently the developer has 17 new housing sites across the region, such as in locations like Strathaven, Newton Mearns, Glasgow, Bearsden, Cumbernauld and Larbert. As a result of this agreement Hyperoptic will now be extending their 1Gbps (900Mbps average) capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and Fibre-to-the-Building (FTTB) network to serve those sites.

The ISP is already deploying their network to a number of large apartment buildings (MDUs) in Glasgow and Edinburgh, which covers over 15,000 premises. Today’s announcement is expected to add 1,800 homes to that total and the first development due to be completed is 21 Mansionhouse Road, which is a collection of 101 “luxury apartments and penthouses” in southern Glasgow.

Sharon Maybury, National Manager of Hyperoptic, said:

“This partnership with CALA Homes enables us to expedite our Scottish expansion via installing our services at the build stage. Hyperoptic is committed to lead the charge to Gigabit Scotland. We announced our intention to expand our full fibre network to Scotland in 2015.

Since then we have been working steadily to expand our footprint, with the aim of connecting hundreds of thousands of Scottish residents in the coming years.”

Liana Canavan, Sales and Marketing Director for CALA Homes (West), said:

“We pride ourselves on being renowned as a premium housebuilder. This reputation is built upon our commitment to give our customers the best living experience possible. This partnership addresses and exceeds the digital needs of our future residents.

Being able to immediately get online, via the fastest broadband connection in the UK, is just phenomenal. This information will be incredibly well received by our future customers and will positively impact their move-in experience.”

At present Hyperoptic’s Gigabit broadband network is already available to 500,000 premises in mostly urban parts of the United Kingdom, although earlier this month they announced a major debt raise of £250 million via 8 international bank (here) that should help to deliver on their proposed roll-out target of 2 million premises by the end of 2022.

Connecting up MDUs in the way that Hyperoptic does tends to be both significantly cheaper and quicker (per premises passed) than a traditional FTTP roll-out, which might require a lot more street works. This is why they can often go further with a lower level of investment than other operators would need.

Prices tend to start at around £17 per month (special offer) for an unlimited 30Mbps service and rise to £45 (£60 after a discount) for 900Mbps with free installation.