Hyperoptic Get Full Fibre Boost in Birmingham and Wolverhampton

Full fibre broadband ISP Hyperoptic UK has secured new partnership agreements with Birmingham Council and the City of Wolverhampton Council in the West Midlands of England. The move will enable them to expand their gigabit-capable network to cover tens of thousands of additional homes in both cities.

At present the provider’s broadband network already exists in parts of around 43 UK towns and cities, across well over 400,000 premises, although they’ve previously expressed an ambition to cover 2 million UK premises by the end of 2021 and then 5 million by the end of 2024 (mostly in urban areas).

Sadly, today’s announcement doesn’t tell us precisely what kind of “partnership” Hyperoptic has managed to secure with the two local authorities, but in our experience it usually involves some sort of master wayleave agreement (legal land/property access rights etc.) to help the operator access council’s owned social housing estates and or other facilities (street furniture etc.) to run their fibre.

Under the new deal Birmingham Council, which has a huge social housing portfolio of approximately 62,000 homes, will initially see FTTP/B being deployed to a “first tranche” of 8,000 homes and more may follow. Similarly, the City of Wolverhampton Council owns approximately 21,000 homes, with Hyperoptic starting their build with 1,000 homes on the authority’s largest estate, Heath Town.

As part of this new partnership with Birmingham Council, Hyperoptic will also be providing free gigabit speed broadband connectivity to local community centres.

Liam McAvoy, MD of Hyperoptic’s Business Development, said:

“We have spent the last decade relentlessly focussed on enabling as many people as possible to benefit from access to hyperfast, reliable broadband. We thank both Birmingham and Wolverhampton Council for enabling us to rollout our services to their housing stock. Councils have got a huge role to play in expediting the rollout of full fibre – and with these agreements in place, we can get cracking connecting people to a whole new level of broadband experience.”

Customers typically pay from around £22 per month for an unlimited 50Mbps service on Hyperoptic and this goes up to £45 for 900Mbps+ (symmetric speed) on a 12-month minimum contract term (discounts applied). A one-off £29 activation fee also applies to some packages, but others are free.

On top of that, Hyperoptic now has a new Fair Fibre Plan, which enables customers on specific means-tested benefits to get access to discounted rates. For example, with this plan its 50Mbps broadband-only service on a monthly rolling contract is available at just £15 a month. Faster Fair Fibre packages are also available, albeit at a higher price.