COVID-19 – Everyone on Jersey to Get 1Gbps Broadband Speed

The Government of Jersey (English Channel Island) and Digital Jersey, an economic development agency and industry association, has reached an agreement with local telecoms operators (JT, Sure and Homenet) that will see all “full fibre” broadband lines on the island being speed boosted to symmetrical 1Gbps “at no extra cost.”

The local stated-owned ISP JT (Jersey Telecom) completed the deployment of a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband ISP network on the English Channel Island of Jersey in mid-2018, which followed a six year and c.£40m build project to cover around 40,000 homes and 5,000 businesses.

At the start of this year JT also took another leap by doing something extraordinary. The operator harnessed their new full-fibre network to deliver an increase to minimum broadband speeds from 250Mbps – an already impressive speed to set as a “minimum” – and turbo charged it to 500Mbps (50Mbps upload) for all subscribers.

The latest pledge goes significantly beyond even that and applies to several operators. The idea is to support “home-working and home-isolating” as Islanders adapt to the measures being put in place to contain the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus). “This arrangement will last for as long as the current COVID-19 measures remain in place unless otherwise agreed by all parties,” said the statement.

CEO of Digital Jersey, Tony Moretta, said:

“These are challenging times and it is great to see the industry work together to facilitate the introduction of these higher broadband speeds. With our 100% fibre network, Jersey is in the unique position of being able to easily support all the services required for both remote working and living for the entire population. We will continue to work with Government and industry to ensure both businesses and consumers have the technology they need.”

The work to increase speeds will take place over the course of the next two weeks, although the Tariffs paid by broadband subscribers will not change. We should point out that not all ISPs appear to offer a truly “unlimited” usage allowance like you’d see as standard across the United Kingdom. For example, customers of JT are only able to benefit from unlimited usage between midnight and 8am, while outside of that there are “usage allowances” of 20GB, 100GB or 300GB (restrictive figures to have on such a fast full fibre network).