Rural Broadband ISP Truespeed Start Glastonbury FTTP Rollout

Rural UK ISP Truespeed, which is fuelled by £75m from Aviva Investors and are building their own 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across Somerset, has today announced that they’re deploying across the festival town of Glastonbury. The neighbouring areas of Shepton Mallet and Street will also benefit.

The provider, which has already extended their FTTP network to 200 rural communities (mostly in Somerset) and holds to ambition to reach as many as 500,000 premises across South West England by the end of 2025 (and 75,000 by the end of 2021), plans to cover 15,000 premises across Glastonbury, Shepton Mallet and Street in Somerset.

The firm uses flexible deployment techniques to reduce the need for digging up roads, such as connecting fibre optic cables to existing ducting and poles carrying telephone (e.g. via Openreach’s current infrastructure) and power lines, and securing access permissions (wayleaves) for third-party infrastructure and private land.

At present, over 600 customers across the three areas are said to have already signed-up, many of whom are apparently “ready to receive the ultrafast service before Christmas.” Customers of the residential service typically pay from £29.99 per month for an unlimited 80Mbps (symmetric speed) package on an 18-month contract term with free installation, which rises to £69.99 per month for their top 900Mbps plan.

James Lowther, CEO of Truespeed, said:

“Access to ultrafast, reliable broadband is an essential part of modern day working and family life. In concert with the local communities of Glastonbury, Street and Shepton Mallet, we’re working flat out to deliver exceptional broadband that will truly benefit residents and businesses alike.”

As usual with deployments in such towns, Truespeed won’t be the only gigabit-capable broadband network playing in the same area. Glastonbury has also been named on Jurassic Fibre’s rollout plan for FTTP (they’re also targeting Street), while Openreach aim to extend their full fibre network across the town at some point in the next 5 years. All of this will make it harder for the operators to gain return on their investment.

We should add that Truespeed will also offer “free ultrafast broadband for life to schools and community hubs passed by its network,” with 100+ signed up to date.