ISP Zzoomm Confirm Hereford as its Next Gigabit Fibre Rollout

Residents and businesses in the Herefordshire (England) city of Hereford, which is home to around 56,000 people, will be the next to gain access to Zzoomm’s 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network after the ISP largely completed their build in Henley-on-Thames.

The announcement comes only a couple of weeks after Zzoomm announced that it had secured a huge “initial” investment of £100 million from Oaktree Capital Management to fuel their future expansion (here). Meanwhile the new build in Hereford is due to commence in “early 2021” and will aim to “cover the entire city” (target of 28,000 premises).

All of this should help to support the provider’s longer-term ambition to cover 1 million UK homes by 2025, although they’ll need to raise a lot more investment to reach that sort of level.

Residential customers pay from £29 per month for a 100Mbps package and that goes up to £99 if you want their top 2Gbps tier, which also happens to be one of the fastest home packages available.

Matthew Hare, Zzoomm’s CEO, said:

“The commencement of our network roll out in Hereford in the New Year marks the opening of a new exciting chapter for residents and businesses in the area. The people of Hereford have been stuck with old fashioned copper broadband for too long, and it’s now time for change. We’re going to transform their experience with Zzoomm’s Full Fibre network.

The lockdown has accelerated the move to new working arrangements and boosted the demand for online entertainment and learning. Zzoomm has demonstrated that Full Fibre meets the need and will catapult Hereford into one of the best connected cities in the world.”

Councillor Ellie Chowns said:

“Access to new Full Fibre broadband in Hereford will be a great boost bringing new jobs as well as access to the fastest broadband speeds in the country.

The majority of improved broadband access in the county has been delivered as a result of Fastershire’s intervention, so it’s wonderful that new full fibre operators, like Zzoomm now see the county as an ideal place to invest.

Around 92% of properties in the county can access a superfast service and 26% can already access full fibre gigabit capable connections throughout our rural areas. With announcements like this in the city, Herefordshire is really starting to lead the way.”

The “cathedral city” of Hereford is an interesting pick for Zzoomm. At present Openreach (BT), Gigaclear and Glide all have some small patches of FTTP coverage (Openreach also has a bit of slower G.fast), but nobody has really attempted a more significant build inside the area. In theory this could bode well for Zzoomm going forward, unless their rivals in the area respond with a more concerted effort.