Freedom Fibre Secures Funding Boost for UK Full Fibre Rollout
Alternative network ISP Freedom Fibre (FF), which started rolling out a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across semi-rural parts of North West England in March 2021, has today accelerated its growth forecast after securing a second major equity injection.
The provider, which was first spotted working with TalkTalk earlier this year (here and here), previously aspired to deploy their new “full fibre” network to 100,000 properties in the North West of England by the end of 2022. Some of the first areas to benefit have included the large village of Culcheth (c.5,000 homes), as well as the adjacent Warrington communities of Croft and Glazebury. More recently they’ve also moved into the nearby community of Winwick.
Based in Irlam, Greater Manchester, the company has now secured a second round of equity injection. As a result, the provider now expects to exit the year with £30 million of capital as part of its continued scale and growth plans.
Freedom Fibre states that the new capital injection and operational progress were providing some confidence on their first target of bringing 50,000 homes into their full fibre network by mid-2022, with further scale funding anticipated from mid-2022 onwards.
As it stands, the provider’s initial build project (see above) is now nearing completion, and the first customers in the village of Culcheth have already been connected. A target to give full fibre access to 12,000 homes in Culcheth and other North West areas is currently on track for the end of this year.
We should add that Freedom Fibre was founded by Neil McArthur, who has 30 years’ experience in UK Telecoms. Mr McArthur also founded Opal Telecom, which led to the creation of TalkTalk and, later, the FibreNation project, before it was gobbled by CityFibre.
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 Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.
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This does appear to be one of the providers more likely to be successful.
It’s not clear though what’s changed here. Are they just confirming they have received additional funding towards their already announced 100,000 premises goal?
Amazed by the speed they have rolled this out in Winwick
one day we’ll get decent internet in Wilmslow. I don’t understand why it’s not a target for anyone – one of the wealthiest towns in the North West with one of the lowest average speeds nationwide per previous ISPreview reporting. Surely it’s commercially viable?! Fingers crossed Freedom come by soon and I’ll be free of 14/1 down/up!