ISP Hyperoptic Expands UK Full Fibre to Gloucester City Homes

Full fibre ISP Hyperoptic has today agreed a blanket wayleave agreement with independent housing association Gloucester City Homes (GCH), which will enable their gigabit-capable broadband network (FTTP/B) to reach thousands of properties owned by the association.

GCH currently owns and manages a total of around 4,400 rented homes in the Gloucester area and the “first phase” of Hyperoptic’s related rollout will connect over 1,350 of those to their network. It will also be providing free connectivity to local community centres, enabling local residents to have access to the web at zero cost.

At present the provider’s FTTP / FTTB network already exists in parts of around 43 UK towns and cities, across well over 400,000 premises (old figure), 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).

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

“We are delighted to be providing GCH’s residents with access to the gold standard of connectivity, and we plan to start rolling out our services straight away. With full fibre, residents can rely on their connection to support them for whatever they need – at any time. Ultimately, full fibre provides a much faster and more reliable experience, which tenants can usually enjoy without having to pay a penny extra.”

Customers typically pay from around £20 per month for an unlimited 50Mbps service on Hyperoptic and this currently goes up to just £35 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 the fastest tiers are free.

On top of that, they also have 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.