Netomnia and Light Source Target 1 Million UK Homes for FTTP Broadband
Full fibre network builder Netomnia (YouFibre) has today announced that they’ve entered into a new partnership with infrastructure developer Light Source, which will see the pair work together in order to deploy a 10Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network (XGS-PON) to 1 million UK premises by 2024.
Founded in 2019 by Jeremy Chelot (ex-CEO of CommunityFibre) and joined in 2020 by Wil Wadsworth (ex-FD of Gigaclear), Netomnia has most recently been helping to conduct the infrastructure deployment for full fibre ISP YouFibre, which started last year in the small Durham (England) town of Peterlee. Jeremy is also one of YouFibre’s founders.
However, today’s announcement reveals that Netomnia and Light Source are also engaged in advanced construction work in the Gloucestershire town of Cheltenham as part of a £28m investment, which is expected to reach 70,000 premises (homes and businesses).
On top of that the Netomnia site mentions another Durham deployment for the town of Spennymoor, which is already said to be partly live like Peterlee. Apparently, more locations are planned to start during 2021 and the network will also be open access (i.e. available via wholesale to other ISPs).
Wil Wadsworth, Netomnia CFO, said:
“We are delighted to be partnering with the talented team at Light Source, who are just as passionate as we are about building mission-critical digital infrastructure the UK so desparately needs. Full fibre is vital to the development of the UK economy, and recent times have proven the crucial role that good, reliable connectivity plays in enabling communities and businesses to thrive.”
Steven Hill, Light Source Managing Director, said:
“My team and I are delighted to have secured this exciting new partnership to deliver a future-ready, full-fibre network for Cheltenham. With demand so high at the moment, it is key to me that our organisation selects partners with similar principles, and from our very early conversations with the team at Netomnia, it was quite clear to me that we have parallel ambition, values and culture.”
All of this sounds like very good news, although we do recall that Netomnia originally aspired to cover 1 million premises by the end of 2022, before rising to 3 million by 2025, which is clearly a bit different from the new target. We further note that a number of other FTTP builders, such as Cityfibre and Exascale, also have plans to deploy into the Cheltenham area and that will no doubt add some competitive pressures to their plan.
Otherwise, the first customers are expected to go live around Cheltenham this summer 2021. Customers can expect to pay from £20 per month (discounted from £22) on a 12-month term for their unlimited 50Mbps package, which rises to £30 (discounted from £50) if you want their top 900Mbps plan. This is very cheap and clearly intended to help grow take-up.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Tenant I have in Peterlee can’t even afford full rent – if they get this I will evict them for being a scumbag
Netomania have started to erect hideous 12 metre high wooden poles in our street as preparation for the new Youfibre broadband installation. No consultation was carried out with the residents and when asked whether the wires would all be underground a company employee said categorically that this would be the case . We are all flabbergasted at the height and general appearance of the poles and are trying to find how this operation can be stopped . Apparently planning permission is not required ?
I’ve just come back in my house to find post placed outside my house, no consultation too… Disgraceful, can someone from the company please reply!!!
Netomnia, have tried to put 3 of these pole’s up in Bywell drive this week, we chased them and have contacted if local MP,
It’s discussing that they can install a pre was infastructure in this time an age, installing wooden post instead of installing it below ground. They are doing it on the cheap and don’t care how they are doing it! They said they didn’t have permission to dig up the road yet they are to day to lead the wires to the pole from the exchange. They treat us like idiots and the more we complain about this the better. They say this is the future, but there taking us back 59 years
Yes, I agree with Dave. This company Netomnia/YouFibre are a complete joke and treat their potential customers with contempt, just fobbing people off with pre-prepared management speak comments and showing no concern Basically they just want to come in, do the cheapest and easiest job possible and leave residents with the consequence of the visual blight on the streetscape for years to come. The only beneficiary I can see is BT OpenReach who I am sure will be eager to use the poles, hence bypassing their current path based copper wire system. BT are strangely silent.I just don’t understand Youfibre/Netomnia’s business model – why antagonise your customers. All the estate has been turned against this company.
Does anyone know Netomnia’s method of installation of Broadband in Cheltenham or Nottingham as in Durham all they seem to offer is a ruddy great telegraph pole. We have telecomms ducts in the pavement and copper wire from pavement to door. Netomnia say they cant install brcause the copper is buried and insist on taking us back to the 1950’s. They are about to inflict 1000 of these poles in County Durham and it is going down like a lead balloon with the customers. I assume Cabinet to door is the standard process for installing superfast broadband but I’m no no expert. I have actually seen path based systems being introduced by CityFibre in Edinburgh and on the web, BT OpenReach in Nottingham. Any insight? This is causing major distress in the area and doesn’t seem state of the art to me, but they are uncomprising that there is no alternative.
Who let the poles out? Who? Who? Who? Who?
They have just decided to put 3 poles up in Ferryhill residents are in uproar with these big ugly masts right outside peoples homes.Will they be compensating THE HOME OWNERS as house prices will be significantly decreased ?????
you haven’t said what Ferryhill area you are in but they are looking to erect 5 poles around the bungalows Helmsley close, Richmond Close, Skipton Close, Belsay Close and Stanhope Close. Speaking for myself I don’t want them and I don’t suppose anyone else will want then either.
I’m an watching with delight the underground installation down my road in Cheltenham by netomnia, via existing pits. I have been waiting 2m since moving in for Openreach to get me a working copper line from the wooden pole, yesterday’s engineer was the 6th out and still utterly clueless. It’s funny how people are up in arms about them putting poles up – you are going to have 900mbps internet!! Count yourselves lucky!!!
Why in the hell do i need 900mbp speed and i am certainly NOT lucky to have a 20m high pole outside of my house and four more in roughly a 50m distance !!!! i currently have speeds of over 45 mbps as of now and this is ample for most people, this is a housing estate NOT a business estate…. If they want to install fibre then bury the cables but NO Netomnia wont because it’s CHEAPER to go overhead. Over 300 residents are meeting to start action against Netomnia to STOP these poles being errected.
Well done P Davies to you all and good luck hope you succeed in stopping the poles !!
Netomnia is taking us back to the 1950s with poles going up everywhere. Stop them and make them put the cable underground and push their costs up.
Whereabouts are these poles. Are they in County Durham
Had letter through the door today. Never heard of them, the’ve only been in business a year or two. Yet they’re digging up the street (according to them) for FFTP for home users. Co Durham is hardly WFH central.
Where I live (Chllton) we do have the problem of a certain segment of the population thinking stealing our overhead power lines is fun – we’d like them buried, can they bury it all in the same trench in one go?
The only reference I can find to this company online is at Companies House.
Netomnia and YouFibre (the selling arm) are both part of the Substantial Group. Netomnia specialise in putting up telegraph poles where none have existed before, and especially where nobody wants them.