Rural ISP Truespeed Begin FTTP Broadband Build in City of Wells

Rural full fibre UK ISP TrueSpeed, which is deploying a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across parts of South West England (Somerset), have begun their planned build to cover 6,000 properties and 1,000 businesses in the tiny cathedral city of Wells.

The provider, which is supported by an investment of £75m from Aviva Investors (here), currently aims to cover 75,000 premises in parts of rural South West England by the end of 2021 and they hold an aspiration of reaching 200,000 by around 2025 (i.e. a demand-led deployment where 30% of a community usually needs to sign-up first).

The ISP first announced their intention to cover Wells in December 2019 and since then they’ve been busy planning the deployment, which has finally begun. Under the plan Truespeed expects to complete their roll-out by the end of 2020 and their goal is to connect people who have signed-up “within 2-3 weeks of their building being passed.”

Residential customers can expect to pay from £47.50 per month for a symmetrical 200Mbps package with unlimited usage, an 18 month contract term, wireless router, VoIP phone service and free installation (Government vouchers allowing). A bespoke 10Gbps service is also possible for businesses.

Evan Wienburg, CEO of Truespeed, said:

“We set up Truespeed to bring affordable Gigabit-capable broadband connectivity to areas in the South West such as Wells that have been ignored by larger providers. And to do it differently. While other providers force multiple customers to share one fibre-optic cable, Truespeed customers get their own exclusive cable right to their door.

This is important because it is the difference between getting the digital equivalent of the fast lane on the motorway all to yourself 24/7 – even during rush hour – and being shunted into the slow lane when there is insufficient bandwidth to cope with customer demand.”

Tessa Munt, Somerset County Councillor for Wells, said:

“I’m delighted that Truespeed will bring ultrafast broadband to Wells Town Hall as part of their community work. Everyone using the building, whether visitors, staff or those like me who attend Council meetings and events will benefit greatly from this high-speed facility as life slowly returns to a different normal, saving taxpayers’ money, the climate and time.”

Truespeed said they also intend to make use of existing telegraph poles and cable ducts where it makes sense, which is almost certainly a reference to Openreach’s Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) product. But the provider won’t have the city all to themselves.

Openreach itself has already deployed their slower FTTC (up to 40-80Mbps) technology across most of Wells and they’ve also built some “ultrafast” G.fast and gigabit-capable FTTP in a few patches. On top of that Voneus has also made their 50Mbps wireless broadband network available across the city too (here).

Suffice to say that for a tiny rural city, people in Wells will soon have a fair bit of choice and it’ll be interesting to see how this impacts take-up between the various rivals.