Clarifying WeFibre’s FTTP Rollout Intentions for Llanon in Wales UPDATED

A new report suggests that UK ISP WeFibre (Telcom) may have dropped the rural Ceredigion (Wales) village of Llanon from their gigabit voucher supported Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband rollout plan, which occurred after Openreach (BT) announced that they’d cover the community. But the situation may not be so clear-cut.

Earlier this year (here) we reported that the provider, which holds an ambition to bring their “full fibre” network to 1 million UK premises by the end of 2023 (here), would initially focus on areas like Marsden (West Yorkshire), Tameside in Greater Manchester and Blackpool. WeFibre also revealed that they would deploy across a number of rural communities in Cumbria and West Wales, supported by the government’s gigabit vouchers.

Since then, some of those communities, such as Llanrhystud and Cross Inn, have secured the necessary funding and can now proceed to deployment. But according to a community website for the project, the same can’t be said for Llanon, which like a lot of other gigabit voucher projects has allegedly found itself becoming ineligible for voucher funding.

The change in circumstance appears to have occurred as a result of Openreach’s move to expand their FTTP rollout, which is said below to have occurred under a contract with the Welsh Government (here). Except, Llanon was added to the rollout list when Openreach raised their commercial plans to include 6.2 million rural and semi-rural premises (here).

Major expansions like this are positive, although Openreach’s deployment timescale runs in to late 2026 (i.e. a potentially much longer wait before the service arrives) and it has disrupted a number of other voucher-based rollout plans by rivals.

A statement on the project site said (here):

“We’re thrilled to announce that after much dialogue with DCMS we have received final funding approval and sign off for Llanrhystud.

We do however have some sad news for the residents of Llanon. I am sure most of you would have seen the update from Openreach, this was to say that Llanon are now going to be upgraded by them. This decision was taken out of our hands, due to the contract the Welsh Government have with Openreach. It will come as no surprise that these upgrades will be in the next 5 years for Llanon. If we had a choice then Llanon would be getting the green light as is Llanrhystud.”

The move, if it were correct, would make sense from the sides of the Welsh and UK Governments (Building Digital UK), since they don’t want to invest public money to help deployments in areas that are planned to benefit from commercial upgrades.

On the other hand, there’s always the risk that Openreach could change their tentative plans for such communities at a later date, and it’d thus be hard luck if the area now ends up waiting years longer to benefit (it’s not yet known when OR’s FTTP will arrive in Llanon, but hopefully it’s closer to 2021/22 than 2026). However, all is not as it appears..

UPDATE 23rd July 2021

WeFibre has informed us that the project site and their statement on Llanon was inaccurate. According to the ISP, WeFibre to date has not submitted any proposal to DCMS for a voucher funded project that includes premises in the Llanon area.

A Spokesperson for WebFibre told ISPreview.co.uk:

“Our current plans are to focus on the roll-out of service within Llanrhystud where we do have funding approval with a view that we will further extend our network to cover the Llanon area as a subsequent project. We also note that the vast majority of premises in Llanon remain eligible for voucher funding and once our planning and community engagement is further developed for the area we will be in a position to submit a proposal to DCMS for their review.

Openreach’s plans for the area have no direct impact on WeFibre’s plans; we welcome choice and competition in the market as this represents a positive benefit for customers.”