ISP Gigaclear Issues Update on Gloucestershire FTTP Rollout

Rural UK ISP Gigaclear has today issued a brief update on their progress to deploy a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in Gloucestershire via the joint state aid supported Fastershire project, which also includes Herefordshire council.

At present the Fastershire project, which harnesses various different contracts with Openreach (BT), Gigaclear, Airband, Full Fibre Ltd and Glide (among others), expects to extend “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) coverage to over 97% of properties in both counties by the end of 2022.

Last June 2020 Gigaclear informed us that their related FTTP rollout in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire had reached 34,000 premises, buy sadly we haven’t been given an updated figure today and so can’t gauge progress. Instead, the ISP confirms that, during the past year, they dug over 57,000 metres of trenching to lay new fibre in order to allow for over 5,000 additional rural homes and businesses to access gigabit broadband.

As a result of all that the provider has now commenced building in Slimbridge, Halmore, Newport, Stone, Barkley, Westend, Kingscote and Horsley.

Jamie Flint, Gigaclear’s GM of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, said:

“2020 was a hard year for everyone, especially those without reliable access to the internet. Fortunately, Gigaclear’s work is deemed critical by government and, despite resourcing issues due to the pandemic, we were able to really up our game and we have taken advantage by starting our builds in these communities.”

We’ve been able to accelerate down the M5 corridor thanks to our award-winning engineering project to cross the River Severn. This has provided the backhaul connection which will enable us to light up a number of new communities. We hope that 2021 will be a much better year for everyone but, in the meantime, we’re still working as hard as we can to get properties connected to our gigabit capable network.”

Councillor Patrick Molyneux, Gloucestershire County Council, added:

“Thanks to our partnership with Fastershire, over 100,000 Gloucestershire homes and businesses have superfast broadband. That’s been so important for home working and home learning during lockdown – as well as video calls with friends and family. It’s great that the roll out is gaining pace after the challenges of last year – superfast broadband everywhere is a vital part of our plans to grow our economy and protect local jobs.”

As it stands Gigaclear’s network now reaches more than 130,000 UK homes and businesses in 300 communities across 22 counties.