76,000 Extra Premises in Northern Ireland to Get FTTP Broadband

Northern Ireland’s Department for the Economy (DfE) has today confirmed what we first revealed in September (here), which is that alternative network ISP Fibrus have secure the £165m Project Stratum contract and will be extending “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) coverage to 76,000+ extra rural premises by March 2024.

At present around half of all premises in Northern Ireland Northern Ireland can already access a gigabit-capable “full fibre” network (here), which is more than any other part of the UK, and commercial deployments alone (Fibrus, Openreach, Virgin Media etc.) are predicted to extend this to c.88% (here). On the flip side, 30Mbps+ coverage stands at just 90% and that’s lower than any other part of the UK.

Suffice to say that rural coverage remains a weak point and something that Project Stratum hopes to change, not least by harnessing £165m of state aid (see above) to help extend superfast broadband to “approximately” another 76,000 premises (this is down from the previous ambition of 78,750 premises and 97,000 before that). Better yet this will all come via a gigabit-capable “full fibre” network.

At present Fibrus already has a plan to cover 145,000 premises with a gigabit speed capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network by around 2024 (here) and they recently committed to help ensure that 100% of homes in Northern Ireland can access such services by the end of 2025 (here). The new contract will thus enable them to stretch further into poorly served and commercially unviable rural areas (i.e. the final c.10%).

We should point out that Fibrus also recently secured the complementary £15m Full Fibre Northern Ireland Consortium (FFNI) contract, which aims to construct a new gigabit-capable fibre network to connect around 880 public sector sites across 10 council areas by March 2021 (here).

Diane Dodds, N.I Economy Minister, said:

“After a competitive and very robust procurement process, I am pleased to announce that the contract has been awarded to Fibrus. This announcement means that we are one step closer to bringing next generation broadband services to those businesses and people who need it most.

Fibrus proposes a full fibre solution, capable of offering speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second to almost 97% of premises in the target intervention area. Deployment of the new infrastructure is expected to commence immediately and implementation will run until March 2024.

While always recognised as important, the pandemic and restrictions we have all had to live under have underscored the importance of broadband connectivity. Project Stratum will transform the broadband connectivity landscape for many of our citizens and businesses across primarily rural areas of Northern Ireland.”

Conal Henry, Fibrus Chair, added:

“This investment partnership with the NI Executive positions Northern Ireland a digital global leader. Full fibre broadband is key to unlocking the full economic and social potential of our rural communities and is as vital a part of our 21st century infrastructure as power, water or transport. This investment enables towns, villages and rural communities to change the narrative, keep people and communities connected and facilitate the increasing demand for working and studying at home. The benefits of Full Fibre Broadband are more relevant now in a Covid context than ever before.

In South Down, Mid Ulster and now in the North Antrim area we have already invested £65million to bring full fibre broadband to regional towns. The Stratum project, in partnership with the NI Government, brings the total investment in Fibrus’ network over the next 4 years to £350million radically accelerating and extending FFB to those that need it most. Today’s announcement is a milestone for Fibrus and for Northern Ireland.”

The announcement represents a big win for the alternative network (AltNet) provider, which had to beat a rival bid from BT (Openreach) and others in order to scoop the contract. Arguably choosing BT would have been the safer bet, particularly given that local authorities tend to be quite risk averse and the operator has a good reputation for delivery.

However, the people behind Fibrus, including major investor Infracapital, have plenty of experience with running bigger companies and will should know to smoothly scale-up the business, hopefully without running into too many of the usual expansion problems that can occur during rapid growth spurts (provided they can find enough skilled engineers to achieve the target).

The exact rollout plan, which should push 30Mbps+ coverage to almost 97% by completion, is likely to follow at some point in the near future (it often takes a few months to get through the final engineering surveys and other bits etc.). The N.I government has also pledged to “work closely with the supplier and, through continued engagement with DCMS, will deliver infrastructure to serve all premises in the target intervention area, including those not currently in scope, as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile Openreach’s commercial investment will currently see them reaching at least 525,000 premises (60% of NI) by the end of March 2021 with FTTP and they’ve already indicated that they “don’t plan to stop there.” We wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Openreach clash with Fibrus (overbuild) in a few areas, just as they already do with Virgin Media.