Grayshott Plan Gigabit Full Fibre Rollout in Hampshire and Surrey

The latest start-up to enter the UK broadband market appears to be Morden-based ISP Grayshott Gigabit, which has revealed that they plan to deploy a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across poorly served rural areas in the East Hampshire, Surrey Hills and surrounding areas.

The provider cropped up after they put in an application for Code Powers from Ofcom, which is something that operators often do to help speed-up the rollout of new fibre optic networks and cut costs by reducing the number of licenses needed for street works. Such powers are also a necessary step for those seeking to harness Openreach’s existing cable ducts and poles to run some of their own fibre – Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA).

The company itself was only incorporated in January 2021, alongside a tiny allocation of £100 in shares, and its sole Director is listed as Mashood Qamar Ahmad. The website suggests that at least some of the funding for their deployment will come from the Government’s gigabit voucher scheme.

Grayshott has also issued a tentative rollout plan, which suggests that they’re following a demand-led model and will start work on Phase One this summer 2021 in Grayshott, Hindhead and Beacon Hill. A number of other locations are also mentioned for their future deployment, provided there’s enough demand to proceed.

Future Build Plans (Tentative)

– Churt, Tilford, Elstead, Frensham

– Headley & Headley Down

– Shottermill, Bramshott, Liphook

– Whitehill, Kingsley, Oakhanger

– Clanfield, Horndean, Waterlooville,

– Rowledge, Wrecclesham, Bentley

– Liss, Empshott, Greatham

– Petersfield, Steep, Stroud

– East Tisted, Four Marks, Worldham

Residential packages will start at £39 per month on a 24-month term for an unlimited symmetric speed 100Mbps package, which includes a free installation and wireless router. The top package then goes up to £89 per month for a 1.5Gbps service, which would make them one of the few ISPs to offer a faster tier than 1Gbps (usually advertised with average speeds of 900Mbps+). But of course, they’ll need to actually build something first.

Grayshott also said they intend to offer fibre backhaul services to mobile operators and to share their FWA network towers with mobile operators, assuming they do ever build some FWA services (a lot of providers mention FWA to Ofcom in their Code Power’s requests but rarely build them).