ISP County Broadband Extends 1Gb FTTP Network to Suffolk UK

Rural UK ISP County Broadband, which is currently building a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network in rural parts of Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire, has today announced the first town in Suffolk to benefit from their on-going deployment – Sudbury.

The provider is currently being fuelled by an investment of £46m from Aviva Investors and they aim to cover 20,000 premises by the end of 2020. A total of 100 villages and towns are expected to benefit from the current work.

Speaking of expansion, CB have today confirmed that the town of Sudbury – home to about 13,000 people – will be the first location in the English county of Suffolk to benefit from their new full fibre network (register your interest here). The work is expected to be completed by Spring 2022.

The move shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise because the neighbouring villages Belchamp Otten, Belchamp St. Paul and Belchamp Walter approved the plans for their communities and had the network built earlier this year.

Lloyd Felton, CEO of County Broadband, said:

“We would like to work with the people of Sudbury to build our brand new, full-fibre network, that will provide the town with much needed reliable and faster broadband speeds now, and equip them for whatever the future brings.

One thing the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us is just how important a dependable broadband connection is and the urgent need for a faster, more reliable broadband service at home.

We are already well underway with dozens of similar projects in rural areas around Sudbury – and we are now looking forward to extending our full-fibre service to residents of the town itself, bringing affordable, lightning fast broadband services to residents and businesses. We’re asking people to register their interest online to help how we plan and prioritise bringing real full-fibre broadband to the town.

Over the next few weeks we will be hosting a series of online events with residents to answer questions about the project and will be working with the local authorities to provide more information about the service.”

Dr Peter Funnell, Chair of Suffolk Chamber, said:

“What excellent news! This considerable investment will be welcomed by both businesses and residents in Sudbury. One of Suffolk Chamber in Central Suffolk’s manifesto objectives is to work with and encourage partners such as County Broadband to deliver world-beating broadband infrastructure. This initiative is, therefore, a major step forward for the local area. We look forward to other parts of Babergh and Mid Suffolk benefiting from full-fibre broadband in the near future.”

Prices for CB’s service can vary between different areas, although in most cases new customers will typically pay from £28 per month (excluding discounts) for an unlimited symmetric speed 50Mbps service with a bundled wireless router, then £48 for 300Mbps, £55 for 600Mbps and £80 for 900Mbps. Otherwise the costs reflect the rural nature of CB’s deployment, which is inherently more expensive to build.