Rural ISP County Broadband Add 15 Suffolk Villages to FTTP Rollout
Rural ISP and network builder County Broadband, which is currently deploying a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service to homes across East Anglia in England, has just added another 15 villages in Suffolk to their rollout plan.
The provider, which backed by an investment of £46 million from Aviva Investors, is presently deploying their network to a total (so far) of 150 villages across rural communities in Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire.
So far, around 20,000 rural homes and businesses in Constable Country have been earmarked to get full-fibre in their village. The latest 15 additions include Bentley, Brantham, Capel St. Mary, Copdock and Washbrook, East Bergholt, Higham, Holton St. Mary, Layham, Leavenheath, Nayland-with-Wissington, Polstead, Raydon, Stoke-by-Nayland, Stratford St. Mary, and Wenham Magna.
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James Salmon, Director of Sales and New Territories at County Broadband, said:
“The pandemic has shown just how crucial having fast and reliable internet has become, and while people might have been happy with 40 to 50 Mbps speeds yesterday, that is no longer sufficient today, let alone next year. Our increasing internet consumption continues to grow and as more speed is available, more technology will use it.
The harsh reality, especially in rural areas, is that broadband supplied over copper cables is simply too slow, too unreliable and it seriously limits what people can do – from home entertainment to flexible and home working.
Installing new infrastructure on this scale is a complex task, requiring significant planning and can take time to deliver. It involves the coordination of highways, landowners, civils works and advanced fibre optic engineering. Designing and building this multi-million-pound rural infrastructure takes around 12-18 months, meaning the full-fibre networks could be live by Christmas 2022.
We look forward to engaging with each community, whether that’s via webinars or in person, to provide further details about our dedicated plans and how people can register their interest online.”
Schools and community halls in these areas will often also receive a free connection and service. County Broadband’s engagement teams will also be holding public meetings and online webinar events for each village over the coming months to explain the rollout and answer questions.
Prices for the service can vary between different areas, although in many cases new customers will pay from £28 per month (excluding discounts) for an unlimited symmetric speed 50Mbps service with a bundled wireless router, then £48 for 300Mbps, £55 for 600Mbps and £80 for 900Mbps.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I hope they realise what a mess they will make of your villages ! Absolute disgrace of a company
This is part of why villages can be so expensive to deploy to. Difficult terrain, difficult surfaces to work through and people complaining at the slightest disruption so reinstatement requires more expense and work.
I pity those villages, when County Broadband they laid cables in the CO8 area they caused havoc by closing roads, in some cases with no prior warning.
Often a road would be closed, but County Broadband were nowhere to be seen.
Essex Highways were inundated with complaints, but in the majority of cases they took no action. Even though, no statutory notice had been submitted for a closure
Annoying they don’t show their packages unless you are in their area.
900mbps is £80/m, apparently this is a “subsidised connection”, with a minimum speed guarantee of 600mbps.
Their T&Cs however say “Speeds of 900Mbps not achievable by any existing device.”, which is definitely a lie, and seems like the first stage of a cop out of blaming your equipment when speeds are poor.