Ecom’s Gigabit Fibre Reaches Tiny Bucks Village of Crafton

Rural UK ISP Ecom, which is busy building a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to rural parts of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, has just connected their first live customer in the tiny hamlet of Crafton (used to be part of the Mentmore estate owned by the Rothschild family).

The community itself sits roughly in the middle of Ecom’s other target deployments in nearby Ledburn, Wingrave (still gathering interest) and Mentmore. Previously the hamlet could only access fixed broadband speeds of sub-1Mbps via Openreach’s copper line network, although a faster fixed wireless network option also existed.

As before, this latest network extension as been achieved with help from the Government’s rural gigabit voucher scheme and Ecom’s own private investment via owner Chris Wilkie. Homes on the new network typically take packages from 300Mbps (£36 inc. VAT per month) and all the way up to 1Gbps (200Mbps upload) for £96 on a 12-month term. Meanwhile installation costs are generally covered by the vouchers.

The latest deployment also sees the ISP switch from Genexis DRG routers, which has tended to suffer from poor WiFi performance, to the new Icotera i6855. Meanwhile Ecom say they’re also making future plans to potentially reach the villages of Hulcott and Thornborough.