Marykirk and GoFibre to Build Full Fibre in Angus and Aberdeenshire

Broadband ISP GoFibre and rural fixed wireless ISP Marykirk.com have announced a new partnership, which will see the pair working together to extend a new gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across approximately 1,500 homes in areas surrounding the town of Montrose – including Angus and South Aberdeenshire.

At present Marykirk.com is best known for having deploying their Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network to cover parts of South Aberdeenshire and North Angus in Scotland. By comparison GoFibre, via parent BorderLink, only recently announced a huge investment of £164m to build a new FTTP network across 500,000 premises in the North of England and Borders areas over the next 3-years (here).

GoFibre originally began constructing their full fibre network in June 2021 and eventually 10,000 premises in the Angus and South Aberdeenshire area will be able to access their network. However, rather than compete with each other, the pair have instead opted for a more co-operative solution.

Alex Cacciamani, GoFibre’s CEO, said:

“At GoFibre, our mission is to connect local communities to the broadband services they deserve for work and play, ensuring everybody is ready for our digital future. Establishing Scotland as a digital nation is vital, so building the infrastructure we need to underpin economic growth has to happen now.

We are delighted to partner with established local provider, Marykirk.com as we bring local residents the best type of connectivity available.”

Bill Buchan, CEO at Marykirk.com, added:

“There has long been a lack of rural fibre solutions from national providers, so partnering with GoFibre was a must. We are now able to provide broadband speeds that some people in cities have enjoyed for some time, but without the inconvenience of moving house.

I firmly believe that connecting rural communities to full fibre is the future and so this is a significant milestone for our Angus and Aberdeenshire customers.”

The press release doesn’t detail exactly how this partnership will work, although we suspect that it may involve some degree of wholesale arrangement.