ISP Lit Fibre Goes Live with Gigabit Broadband in Wiltshire UK

Lit Fibre (formerly Broadreach Networks), which aims to deploy a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to reach 500,000 UK homes by 2026, is now connecting their first customers in Wiltshire (England) and today confirmed that two towns – Cirencester and Bishop’s Stortford – will be the next to benefit.

Back in March 2021 we revealed that work to build Lit Fibre’s new network, which is currently targetting small to medium-sized towns, was already underway around Corsham and Chippenham. Since then their first customer connections have gone live, and they’re now targeting an expansion into Cirencester (Gloucestershire) and Bishop’s Stortford (Hertfordshire).

The operator’s network is currently live in the Monkton Park area of Chippenham, while the remainder of the town is due to go live over the “coming months.” As for their new deployment in Cirencester and Bishop’s Stortford, Lit Fibre said that civil engineering had already begun, and the first services are expected to start going live in “late 2021“.

Residential customers on their network typically pay from £28 per month on a 12-month term (£30 thereafter) for their unlimited 100Mbps package, which includes a free installation, symmetric speeds and a Wi-Fi 6 router. After that it’s £42 per month (£45 thereafter) for 500Mbps and £60 per month (£65 thereafter) for 1Gbps (900Mbps average). The current discount is due to end on 31st October 2021.

The provider’s CEO, Tom Williams, is also a familiar name to some as he is the former COO of Hyperoptic (until January 2019). Prior to that, he was also the MD of BE Unlimited and the head of O2 UK’s unbundled copper broadband and phone rollout, which gives him a fair bit of experience in this field.

Tom Williams, CEO of Lit Fibre, said:

“We’re really pleased to announce our deployment in Bishop’s Stortford and Cirencester. We’ve focused on accelerating our deployment teams so that we can bring better broadband to more homes that desperately need upgrading to full-fibre. There is such a reliance on good connectivity in the home now, that we’re seeing high levels of demand for these services.

Our experienced team know the importance of delivering a high quality, reliable and consistent network, and now we’re well underway in two more towns, we’re building a network that can improve the experience for many more people.”

The biggest difficulty for Lit Fibre is that they seem to be deploying into areas where gigabit-broadband rivals are also keen to play. For example, Openreach have a few patches of FTTP in both Corsham and Chippenham, while Virgin Media covers a sizeable chunk of Chippenham and Gigaclear are also busy deploying around much of the same area. Netomnia (YouFibre) also have plans for Chippenham.

The newly announced town of Cirencester suffers from a similar problem, with Gigaclear being active with a new build right across the town and Netomnia (YouFibre) planning to deploy there too. Openreach have also deployed some FTTP into the same town. Suffice to say that it will be much harder for Lit Fibre to make a viable model for this area.

As for the Hertfordshire town of Bishop’s Stortford, that is already well covered by Virgin Media’s network and Openreach has a fair chunk of FTTP in the same area, while Hyperoptic and OFNL are separately also present in a small section of the area. We should add that Gigaclear’s network surrounds much of this town, but has yet to enter it.