Hyperoptic and CALA Homes Hail New Build Gigabit Readiness

UK ISP Hyperoptic, which deploys 1Gbps capable “full fibre” (FTTP/B) broadband networks to large residential buildings and houses, and new build developer CALA Homes have signalled their readiness for forthcoming rule changes, which will make such speeds mandatory for property developers.

The UK Government are currently preparing changes that will make it mandatory for property developers to ensure that almost every new home is built with support for “gigabit-speed” (1Gbps) broadband ISP connections “fit for the future” (here), although last year’s COVID-19 lockdown did slow progress on their proposed changes to the Building Regulations (2010).

Nevertheless, quite a few property developers, such as CALA Homes, are already working with operators like Hyperoptic in order to ensure that they’re meeting the criteria. CALA thus claims to be achieving a success rate of 99.99% in delivering “same day” gigabit connectivity to residents. Since 2019, it has provided new home-movers with access to such speeds as soon as they move into a new property, across 30 sites and over 4,200 new homes.

Hyperoptic’s gigabit fibre is currently present in parts of 43 UK towns and cities across well over 400,000 premises, including a large number in London, although they have previously expressed an ambition to cover 2 million UK premises by the end of 2021, followed by 5 million come the end of 2024 (mostly in urban areas). But we haven’t had a progress update on this for a while.

Steve Rule, Group Design & Technical Director for CALA Group, said:

“Our priority is to make the move to a CALA home as easy and streamlined as possible for our buyers. Meeting customer expectations when it comes to broadband and connectivity is a vitally important part of this, which is why we have been investing in this technology for some time.

Last year, every new CALA home across the UK was enabled with Hyperoptic’s connectivity. The installation of Hyperoptic’s full fibre broadband is now a standard component in CALA’s build process.”

We should point out that building regulations are a devolved matter, thus any amendments to the Building Regulations 2010 will only apply in England. However, the government has said that they intend to “work closely with the Devolved Administrations” (i.e. Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland) to help them implement this in a consistent way across the UK.

Otherwise, it’s worth saying that various other property developers (e.g. Barratt Developments) have also committed to installing gigabit broadband as standard across their new build sites, often with support from operators like Openreach, Virgin Media and Hyperoptic etc. Last month we reported that 88.5% of houses constructed in 2020 were connected to a “full fibre” network (here).