Jurassic Fibre Preps FTTP Broadband for Somerset and Dorset
Full fibre ISP Jurassic Fibre, which aims to cover 350,000 UK premises with a 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across South West England (here and here), looks set to imminently expand beyond their initial deployment area in Devon by reaching into Somerset and Dorset.
So far the operator, which is being supported by £250m from Fern Trading Limited, has been busy building their first network in Devon from around Clyst St Mary and Farringdon in the north (Phase 1 Route) – where they covered a patch between Exeter Airport and the Sowton Industrial Estate – to Lympstone and then Exmouth on the south coast.
A quick look at local planning updates shows that JF are still busy building around their initial patch, although we’ve recently begun to receive some interesting reports from communities outside of Devon. For example, locals in Bridgwater (Somerset) claim to have been told that the ISP will reach their town over the next 2 years and we’ve also seen some work by JF listed for the town (e.g. around East Quay).
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The provider has now confirmed that an announcement about their plans for extending beyond Devon should surface before the end of this month.
A Spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:
“Jurassic Fibre is announcing a swathe of new towns across Devon, Somerset and Dorset over the next few months.”
We can certainly see a lot of towns and large villages where the next phase of JF’s deployment could go in those three counties, although it’s fair to say that they’ll also be bumping up against rising competition from Openreach, Gigaclear, Truespeed, Virgin Media and other operators that tend to play in parts of the same region(s). No doubt JF will continue to try and focus on the communities that others have largely overlooked for gigabit connectivity.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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It’s Bridgwater.
7 Sep 10:30 – 18 Sep 15:30
Information for Operational Teams
Highway Authority:
Somerset Council
Location:
East Quay, Eastover, Bridgewater, TA6 4YS E: 330037 N: 137774 to E: 330033 N: 137739 (Outside YHC Hire Services)
Description:
Installation of a new Jurassic Fibre FW6 chamber to link to the Central Link chamber and a BT chamber, works to include an 8m overlay and 4 core drills to join the chambers. All excavations on the footway only.
I thought “Jurassic fibre” was the old cable NTL installed before Virgin took them over!
Jurassic have been challenging residents in Exmouth, a lot of their work in the ducts pulling fibre has resulted in major outages on BT’s copper network over several weeks.
That wouldn’t happen if the strain relief was fitted properly on the copper JB’s……
Poor OR maintenance coming home to roost. The copper network was all but abandoned and milked for 20 years until the Gfast PCP reshelling program.
Sadly the quality of the fibre install is often very poor. Tubes badly routed bar tight across boxes and through ladders making it very difficult to get at the damaged copper that they have trodden on.
In which case OR can make them rectify it in line with the PIA specifications?
So an announcment of an announcement, very helpful.
The are here laying cable in barwick just south of Yeovil Somerset today
I bumped into two chaps from Jurassic Fibre a couple of weeks ago in Creech St Michael (2 miles east of Taunton). They were surveying the ducts/chambers etc in the village footpaths. When asked they said JF was indeed intending to rollout in the area in due course.
A few emails resulted in a response from JF Field Sales Executive stating that; “We will be installing fibre in your area within the next 2 years.”
Timely then!
Will it be coming to will the fibre optic be coming to Hull
Already there via KCom.
Already creating mayhem on the roads, their workers don’t care either, they are happy to do 40mph in a 30 and mount pavements to queue jump. Wish these jokers left it to the professionals.
Why would you say this? The region, especially Somerset, has had many failed attempts by other ISPs who have done a far worse job, Gigaclear as the best example? I live in Somerset West and welcome any attempt at bringing Fttp to my area.
There are many ISPs out there who have very little regard, BT is the perfect example for messing up and floundering rules. A little competition is always good and I for one can’t wait to receive decent connectivity, regardless of who the provider is. These works always cause issues, will always create situations that would be preferred if avoided but ultimately the goal far outways some small minded options because you are not prepared to live with the times.
Bridgwater and Taunton are on the 1st phase for FTTP as announced a month ago by openreach…..I believe the time scale is less than 2 years…
We need JF to connect the outer villages ASAP