Hull-based UK ISP KCOM has recently announced the another set of locations in East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire that will soon benefit from the £100m expansion of their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, which is expected to cover “tens of thousands more homes and businesses.“
Last year KCOM completed a major £85m project to deploy their new “full fibre” network across virtually their entire patch (c.200,000 premises) in East Yorkshire (mostly in and around Hull). Soon after that the operator was acquired by Macquarie Infrastructure for the hefty sum of £627m (here) and promptly announced a £100m network expansion (here and here).
Since then the operator has completed their FTTP expansion to Driffield (6,500 properties), Market Weighton (3,400) and Nafferton (1,100). On top of that they’ve also started deployments for Pocklington (4,500), Howden (2,100), Goole (9,000), Withernsea (2,900), Hornsea (3,900) and Bridlington (18,000).
Following those locations, we’re expecting the deployment to reach Barton-on-Humber (5,200), Brigg (3,500) and Selby (9,100). On top of that the operator has also signalled a willingness to build full fibre infrastructure into smaller communities, albeit only provided “there is demonstrable demand.” The first such communities confirmed for this were Barrow upon Humber and Goxhill (2,100 combined).
In total the above areas equate to around 44,200 premises, and they’ve now confirmed the next batch of locations for roll-out (oddly this includes a re-announcement of Goxhill – this has been on their confirmed list for a while). On top of that ISPreview.co.uk has also spotted engineers working all over the nearby village of Hibaldstow in North Lincs, which for some reason doesn’t get named in the latest announcement.
KCOM’s New Rollout Locations (Q2 2021)
Broughton
Goxhill
Scawby
Hibaldstow (spotted by ISPreview)
The latest set of locations continue to push KCOM’s network into some increasingly competitive communities, where rival operators like Openreach (BT) are already present (usually with slow ADSL2+ and FTTC rather than superior FTTP technology). Naturally Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) isn’t much competition for full fibre FTTP and this gives the operator an advantage over the national incumbent.
KCOM also appear to be encroaching on the turf of some rival full fibre providers in the alternative network space around the North Lincs section of their network, such as InternetTY in the town of Barton-Upon-Humber (here).
Dale Raneberg, KCOM CEO, said:
“I’m delighted to announce that work is now getting underway to give access to residents of Broughton, Goxhill and Scawby to our full fibre network.
Before committing to build in each of these new communities we’ve listened very carefully to local people to gauge demand for our ultrafast broadband and we’ve been delighted by the huge amount of interest that’s been shown.
We’ve said right from the beginning of our £100m expansion programme that if communities want us, we will do our best to come – and we’ve been really encouraged by the amount of support we’ve received in North Lincolnshire.
Our engineers will shortly be out and about in these communities undertaking the groundworks necessary to lay our fibre cable. Although this may lead to some short-term disruption, we always endeavour to keep this to a minimum and it will lead to long term benefits for the area.
As part of the KCOM family customers in North Lincolnshire will be able to access ultrafast speeds on one of the UK’s best full fibre networks. This means they will be able to stream, surf, download and work from home better than ever before, which has become essential for many people in the past 12 months.”
As stated above, all four of the new areas form part of KCOM’s new focus on demand-led deployments (i.e. locals need to express enough interest before they will build). Several other locations are also being asked to express demand before they’re included into the operator’s deployment plan, including – Epworth, Haxey, Crowle, Messingham and Kirton in Lindsey.
Customers typically pay from around £40 per month for a 30Mbps (15Mbps upload) package with unlimited usage and PAYG calls on an 18-month term, which goes up to £79 for their top 900Mbps (50Mbps upload) package. A £25 one-off connection fee also applies.
I would.like to know why is it my neighbour next door number 1 can get up 73 Meg On broadband And Am Next door Only can get Upto 40 Meg On the same corner On my road. I don’t think it’s fair British telecom Is not the bestBroadband provider BT is rubbish They cut your speed By 20%.
There may be a problem with your internal home wiring that causes interference (e.g. an unfiltered master socket), or on the line that runs just outside your house (corrosion, water ingress etc.). Equally, there’s a slim chance that you may be connected to a different cabinet from your neighbour. But this isn’t related to the KCOM news above.
Jonathan, have you checked the BT Openreach product availability page for your postcode/address? Depending on the specifics of your situation, it could simply be that you have an older contract for broadband, from the days when BT only provided 40meg options. 80meg is a relatively new service, so if you have had a contract for 3+ years it may have been the only option you had at the time. In which case, a new contract and router may be able to offer 80+ meg service https://www.openreach.com/
But yes, otherwise it could be a cable/WiFi performance issue.
Hull was getting a bad deal from KCOM with overpriced copper broadband (not FTTC) in the past. However, I have to admit that ever since their full fibre rollout things got a lot better.
Their 1GB package is still overpriced in my opinion (other packages have a fair price) so I hope it goes down, but having pretty much full fibre coverage in a city is something most of UK can’t get.
Yo can you send a source for this please?
KCOM is the source, as should be obvious. Except the one area that we spotted independently.
That KCOM pricing LOL… What a joke. In Barton upon Humber you can already get 250mbps up and down for £32 from Internetty.. or now you can pay KCOM for £40 for 30mbps down and 15mbps up HAHA