Full Fibre Starts Rollout of New UK FTTP Wholesale Network

Earlier this year we reported that fibre builder Full Fibre Limited had tentative plans to expand a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network (here) to reach “rural and semi-urban areas” around Devon, Surrey, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. The build is now underway.

The provider, which operates its network as a wholesale platform for other ISPs (e.g. iNeedFibre) and seems likely to make use of Openreach’s (BT) Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) product “wherever possible“, previously suggested that their new fibre network “would have the potential to deliver ultrafast and gigabit broadband services to residential and business users. Leased line services would also be available.”

Fast forward half a year and the good news is that Full Fibre Ltd. have already started work and made some good progress. At the time of writing they appear to be in the final stages of a major build in Leominster (Herefordshire), which will cover over 5,600 properties. Just to be clear this is essentially covering the whole town, which has previously been starved of superfast broadband access.

The Leominster build has also been supported by a grant from the state aid fuelled Fastershire project (mostly for the local Enterprise Park) and part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Fastershire’s grant provides up to £25,000 of the capital installation cost for any eligible SME business that is not going to be reached by the project’s main rollout contracts or any commercial deployments.

The provider also has other builds in the ground around Shrewsbury (Shropshire) and Ivybridge (Devon), with more towns starting before Christmas. Shrewsbury itself is about to go live with plans to extend that out to further into the town at a later date.

Meanwhile their Ivybridge build is stretching out onto Rural Dartmoor, picking up the scenic Redlake industrial Estate (also known as the Clay Factory), through Bittaford and up to Moorhaven.

Oliver Helm, CEO of Full Fibre, said:

“High quality, fast and reliable broadband is vital to the growth of businesses and can both unlock substantial savings and facilitate growth.

The infrastructure we’ve built provides a stable, future proofed, solution for local business and our wholesale only approach enables internet service provider (ISPs) to offer competitive, reliable services without tying users to one provider.”

In terms of pricing, using iNeedFibre as the baseline example (other ISPs like AirBroadband carry the service), the residential packages range from about £25 per month for a 50Mbps service to £80 for 330Mbps. The latter is quite expensive but then some of the areas being targeted are the sort that would be fairly expensive for a commercial operator to reach, which is reflected in the price you pay.

One problem here is that the supporting ISPs don’t at present provide much information on their related packages, prices or terms. We assume this will follow once the builds reach completion and locals start looking to get connected.