Rural ISP County Broadband Extend FTTP into North Norfolk UK

Rural focused UK ISP County Broadband (CB) has today announced that their multi-million-pound rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network is being extended to reach “thousands of rural homes and businesses” in North Norfolk (England) – covering a total of 15 villages.

The provider, which for the past few years has been supported by a commitment of £46 million from Aviva Investors, is already building full fibre across several rural parts of Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk (totalling over 150 villages). But until today their build in Norfolk mainly focused upon 33 villages in the Breckland and South Norfolk areas.

The North Norfolk villages being earmarked for the new rollout phase are: Antingham, Bacton, Brampton, Burgh and Tuttington, Colby, Felmingham, Gimingham, Knapton, Mundesley, Paston, Skeyton, Southrepps, Swafield, Swanton Abbott, and Trunch.

As before, much of CB’s build is demand-led and thus each community needs to give the green light to their proposals before work on the complex 18-month build projects can begin. Over the coming weeks, CB said their community teams will be meeting with residents and businesses in each village to explain the rollout plans and help secure local support.

James Salmon, CB’s Director of Sales and New Territories, said:

“We are excited to announce our full-fibre rollout plans for North Norfolk as part of our commitment to design, build and deliver future-ready digital connectivity across the East of England.

Crucially, we have secured millions of pounds of private funding to invest in the future of rural communities, meaning we can start planning today to meet our growing needs of tomorrow.

Demand for home and business internet connectivity is higher now than ever before and is set to continue increasing as more and more data-hungry devices require ever faster, more reliable broadband. The reality is the current part-fibre, part-copper networks simply will not be able to sustain the service we all expect and require.

Our new full-fibre infrastructure will allow residents and families the flexibility to continue to develop and grow their internet use whether they are holding simultaneous online meetings working from home, streaming films and sport in 4K, or just being able to connect dozens of devices in their homes. It will enable us all to continue to benefit from the internet.

It is important to highlight that building full-fibre broadband infrastructure in rural locations at this scale is a complex task. Each project requires significant planning, resources and time. It involves the coordination of highways, landowners, civils works and advanced fibre optic engineering, that’s why the sooner we start, the sooner this most needed service will become available.”

Prices for their service may vary between areas, but in most cases new customers will typically pay from £28 per month (excluding discounts) for an unlimited symmetric speed 50Mbps service with a bundled wireless router and free installation, then £48 for 300Mbps, £55 for 600Mbps and £80 for 900Mbps.

However, it would be good to know how much progress CB has actually made over the past few years, but they haven’t stated how many premises they’ve passed so far or what their future coverages goals might be.