The next three areas to benefit from Ogi’s £200m project (here), which aims to deploy a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 150,000 premises in South Wales by 2025, have today been named – Dinas Powys, Milford Haven and Johnston and Monmouth.
The rollout, which is backed by Infracapital and last year started work across Haverfordwest (Pembrokeshire), Abergavenny (Monmouthshire), Rhoose and Llantwit Major (Vale of Glamorgan), will see each of the three new communities benefitting from an investment of around £5-6 million – helping to cover “thousands more homes and businesses.”
Customers of the new service can expect to pay from £35 per month (currently £25 for the first 6 months) for an unlimited service with downloads of 150Mbps (15Mbps upload), free installation (usually £60) and an included wireless router (a mesh system on their faster plans) on a 24-month term, which rises to £55 for their top 900Mbps (90Mbps upload) plan.
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Lee Waters MS said:
“The impact of fast, affordable broadband for homes and businesses across Wales cannot be underestimated, supporting a thriving and sustainable vision for our future.
Ogi is helping to realise faster speeds, greater access and better support for places that have previously found it harder to connect.” He added, “This news is especially important at the moment with so many people working from home where a reliable broadband connection is vital.”
Ben Allwright, Ogi’s CEO, said:
“We’re delighted to be kicking off the new year by announcing the next communities to benefit from Ogi’s home-grown broadband. We’re building an all-new infrastructure from scratch, adding to the thousands of homes that already have access to our services, and are on track to bring our ultrafast connection to many more across Wales this year.”
Broadband speeds in Wales have been too slow for people and businesses for too long, so this is where the transformation begins. With the increased need for fast and reliable broadband, the digital divide in Wales has continued to grow. Ogi is changing that, and helping to transform the digital landscape for generations to come.”
Sadly, exact coverage figures and timescales for each of the newly added communities have not been provided, although the operator’s build only started in June 2021, and we note that they’d already passed 4,565 households by November 2021 (here). At present they’re still in the early stages of ramping-up, so we should see the rate of build continue to increase through 2022.
The operator is being supported by a number of civil engineering contractors in different regions of Wales, including O’Conner Utilities (Central South Wales), Avonline Networks (South East Wales) and Network Plus (South West Wales).
UPDATE 1:56pm
Ogi informs that this next phase will aim to add around 18,000 premises to their coverage and the first homes in these new communities should start connecting from April 2022.
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Great to see investment but the standard of work this company have completed in Haverfordwest has been really poor. They’ve left my street in such a mess, the pavements are ruined and they also cut through our electricity supply on two occasions and just left. When my husband approached them they even blamed BT when it was OGI digging up the pavements. I wish them the best of luck but they have lots of work to do to improve standards
Hi Lucy. I work for Ogi. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We expect professional standards from our workforce, and any behaviour contrary to this is not acceptable. Could you please contact our Customer Care team so we can investigate the issues you raise as a matter of priority. Our email is customer.care@ogi.wales and phone number is 029 2002 0550
Lucy, if this happens again make sure to place a complaint with Pembs County Council. Ogi have a duty to uphold when undertaking street works as part of them having Ofcom code powers.
If they are doing shabby work, not placing signage where it should be, leaving a mess, endangering traffic or pedestrians then PCC can take measures against them.
Just because Ogi are bringing fibre to Haverford doesn’t given them carte blanche to act how they please.
Sooo looking forward to this improvement. Been through several providers to try and upgrade our Internet speed, to no avail, all promising the best, yet still coming through a copper wire. Hurry up
(Any idea of precisely what postcodes of when we can expect connection please?), thanks in anticipation, Mark
Cutting down upload speeds is a dick move
Yep for sure, especially given Gigaclear also in the Infracapital investment group offer symmetrical up/down for residential as standard.
I think it is a very short sighted move on Ogi’s part.
Love the picture. The guy with the keys seems super keen to get access to that cabinet even before it hits the ground, lol.