ISP Grain Spotted Expanding their UK FTTP Broadband Build

Fibre optic UK ISP Grain Connect, which is backed by £10m from Albion Capital, has been spotted deploying their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to existing homes in the resort town of Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast, as well as Carlisle, Barrow-in-Furness and Blackburn.

The move, which was first identified to ISPreview.co.uk by local Scarborough resident Craig Sansam (picture credit), is unusual since we normally see Grain sporadically focusing their “full fibre” deployments on sites for new build homes and large residential buildings (apartment blocks etc.). But in this case their rollout was connecting up a street lined with terraced houses from the Victorian era.

A quick look at local planning documents soon revealed that Grain appeared to have a much wider deployment going on in the town. At present this seems to be focused upon homes in the semi-central area, directly below the bottom part of Peasholm Park.

Naturally we asked the ISP about all this, and it turns out that they now have even bigger rollout plans.

Rich Robinson, Grain Director, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“Currently we are expanding our network to existing homes in Scarborough, Carlisle, Barrow in Furness and Blackburn, as well as growing our network to new homes from Aberdeen down to the south coast of England.

We continue to deliver a network that benefits the communities with a product that delivers on price, quality and service, where we want to be providing all of our customers a better option.”

Scarborough itself looks like a good pick for Grain to begin a larger deployment, not least since there are very few gigabit-capable broadband rivals serving homes in the area (Openreach only has a few tiny patches of FTTP). The North Yorkshire County Council does have some plans to deploy a new full fibre network in the area, but that’s only aimed at rural business parks (here) and not homes.

The other locations may offer a bit more competition for Grain, but it’s good to see their network growing more widely and beyond their original focus. Customers can expect to pay from £25 per month for a symmetric speed 50Mbps package and that goes up to £55 for their top 900Mbps plan. All of these packages come attached to an 18-month minimum contract term, free installation and an included router.