Rural UK ISP County Broadband Adds 12 Villages to FTTP Rollout

Alternative network provider County Broadband, which is currently deploying a 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service across rural parts of England, has today announced that they’ve added 12 villages on the Suffolk and Norfolk borders area to their rollout plan. “Thousands of rural homes and businesses” are set to benefit.

The provider, which is currently being fuelled by an investment of £46m from Aviva Investors and had been aiming to cover 20,000 premises by the end of 2020 (it’s unclear if this was achieved), is presently deploying their FTTP network across rural communities in Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire.

The build in Suffolk started last November 2020 in the town of Sudbury, which is home to about 13,000 people and due to complete by Spring 2022. The good news is that a further 12 villages have now been added to their rollout, including 11 in Suffolk (Hinderclay, Hoxne, Palgrave, Redgrave, Stradbroke, Brome & Oakley, Fressingfield, Rickinghall, Botesdale, Syleham and Thelnetham) and 1 in Norfolk (Brockdish).

However, construction will only start in each village if enough residents and businesses sign-up to the scheme, but if all of them give the green light then a further 5,000 premises would be added to CB’s network. The new networks are set to go live by spring 2022 in each community which approves the plans.

James Salmon, Head of Territory at County Broadband, said:

“The Covid-19 pandemic has shown just how crucial having fast and reliable internet has become, and while people were happy with 40 to 50Mbps provided with Superfast fibre services yesterday, that is no longer sufficient today, let alone next year.

The harsh reality, especially in rural areas, is that broadband supplied over copper cables is slow and unreliable, and is limiting what people can do, from working from home to simply staying in touch with a loved one over Zoom.

That’s why we’re excited to announce that thousands of rural residents and local businesses on the Suffolk/Norfolk border can join our future-ready Hyperfast full-fibre to the property rollout. We look forward to engaging with each community, whether that’s via webinars or in person as lockdown eases, to provide further details about our plans and how they can register their interest online.”

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.