InternetTY Connect First Customers to New Full Fibre Network

UK ISP InternetTY, which last year unveiled their plan to rollout a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to 12,000+ premises in “rural and semi-urbanised areas” (here), has made progress on their first build(s) and are finally beginning to connect their first live customers.

The original plan involved the construction of a new Point-to-Point style “full fibre” broadband network, which included two initial projects in the North Lincolnshire villages of Barrow-on-Humber and Goxhil. On top of that they also planned to cover the village of Sugnall in Staffordshire.

Almost a year has now passed and the ISP have been kind enough to furnish us with an update on their progress. Some of the first customers to benefit from this reside along the High Street in the centre of a town called Stone (Staffordshire), where some 150 business and 48 residential addresses can now receive the service (c. 200 premises).

A further 1,400 homes are also now being passed by their network in various areas and they’ll be joined by an additional 850 on 28th September, which are all within 100 metres in the North Lincs town of Barton-Upon-Humber. “We have laid over 8km of ducting in the past few weeks alone,” said a spokesman for Internetty. Future short term plans will include Wootton and surrounding villages.

Interestingly, InternetTY notes that KCOM’s rival £100m FTTP network extension project (here) is already starting to overbuild some of their patch in North Lincs, which they think may have been triggered by all of their promotional activity in the area. In fairness, KCOM’s primary network is only just across the Humber in Hull and thus Barton is a logical target for their planned expansion south.

Finally, the ISP intends to start building across the village of Ulceby in North Lincolnshire on the 5th October 2020, which they say will enable 694 homes with FTTP (partly funded by vouchers from DCMS). The investment for all of these builds has come from a mix of private self-funding and support via the Government’s (DCMS) rural gigabit voucher schemes.

In terms of pricing, the unlimited packages start from just £20 per month for 100Mbps (10Mbps upload) and this rises to £45 for average symmetric speeds of 800Mbps+. All packages come attached to a 12-month contract term and attract a £25 one-off activation fee. On top of that their 250Mbps and 800Mbps tiers both include a static IP address. Suffice to say that they’re more competitive than KCOM’s plans, as well as a lot of other FTTP providers.