ISP Airband Bring FTTP Broadband to More of Rural Devon UK

Worcestershire-based ISP Airband, which earlier this week revealed that they planned to deploy their ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to over 500,000 UK premises by the end of 2025 (here), has today made fresh progress on that by confirming several locations in Devon that will benefit.

The provider has already covered 12,000 premises in rural parts of Devon since 2017, which occurred as part of their state aid supported contract with the Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) project (this is on-going), although until recently the majority of this was still being delivered using their Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) technology.

Over the past couple of years Airband has also begun to embrace FTTP and one of the most recent villages in North Devon to benefit from this is Berrynarbor, which is home to around 800 people and previously struggled with slow internet connectivity.

Better yet the provider has just confirmed that it now has its sights on bringing fibre to Ilfracombe, Woolacombe, Kentisbury, Lee and other nearby locations.

Simon Palmer, Airband Project Manager, said:

“There are 57 clusters around the county of between 10 and 1,000 properties and the cluster at Berrynarbor is now up and running, with 147 contracted customers.

These are North Devon villages where people are often working from home or are hospital or care workers, all living remotely from big towns and relying on getting high-speed Internet.”

Councillor Rufus Gilbert said:

“Covid has demonstrated how vital connectivity is in modern life especially in rural areas and so we’re delighted to see how transformative better connectivity has been for Rebecca and the whole community.

Working with firms like Airband, it is our mission to empower communities across Devon with next generation connectivity that will improve lives and boost the regional and national economy.”

Customers of Airband typically pay from £38 per month on a 12-month term for an unlimited 40Mbps (10Mbps upload) package and that goes up to £47 per month for their top 250Mbps (75Mbps upload) tier. A one-off installation charge of £99 is usually applicable. The provider does a mix of Government-funded projects and has a growing number of demand-led fibre broadband projects too.