Netomnia Invest GBP8m to Rollout FTTP Broadband in Barry
Netomnia has today confirmed their second deployment location in Wales (after 55,000 premises in Bridgend), which will see them invest £8m to extend their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to serve around 29,000 premises in the coastal town of Barry (Vale of Glamorgan).
The operator, which last year secured £123m of funding (here) and has so far covered over 90,000 UK premises in various towns, ultimately aims to reach 1 million UK homes and businesses by the end of 2023, which is very ambitious for such a timescale.
The service itself is typically supplied to consumers via ISP partner YouFibre, which offers unlimited usage, symmetrical speeds, a Wi-Fi router, free installation and 24/7 UK based support. Customers then pay from £22 per month on an 18-month term for their unlimited 50Mbps package, which rises to £40 if you want their top 900Mbps plan. At present, there’s also a special offer that gives the first 3 months of service for free.
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Alan O’Prey, MD of Netomnia, said:
“Barry is a hugely popular seaside town where access to ultrafast broadband is more important than ever following a revival in the popularity of UK holiday destinations. We are passionate about providing access to fast and reliable broadband, to attract talent to the local area, enable businesses to work more effectively and provide more ways for communities and individuals to communicate with each other. Our investment in Barry will
bring real benefits to the area and its residents for many generations to come.”
The deployment in Barry is welcome, although it’s yet another highly competitive area where gigabit-capable broadband rivals are already present. In particular, both Openreach’s FTTP and Virgin Media’s HFC / FTTP networks already dominate most of the town. Hyperoptic also has a tiny presence in one area.
Elsewhere, we do wish that Netomnia would announce more locations in batches rather than piecemeal, as it can become quite repetitive. Speaking of which, the rollout plan on their website lists a number of other locations in Wales under the tentative “To Do” list: Ammanford, Llansamlet, Neath, Tonypandy, Aberdare, Ystrad Mynach, Newbridge, Ebbw Vale, Pontypool and Wrexham.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Excellent. More and more second tier cities and larger towns seeing rollouts from altnets. For the consumer this can only be good.
Barry already has full Openreach FTTP coverage, Bridgend would definitely benefit though
Tonypandy has all but zero FTTP coverage. Until Openrrach pull their finger out. Not covered by Virgin either.
I’m covered by a neighbouring exchange, Porth, here’s hoping for further roll out.
Cracking
Should come to Porthcawl, whilst doing Bridgend
I notice that DOVER was on their “To Do” list.
I do hope they consider Temple Ewell, Kearsney and River in that as these have VM or FTTC (most 30-50mbps).
I’d rather Netomnia than Trooli which has done other towns and associated villages due to symmetric and 10GBS capability.
Looking at their ‘To Do’ list, they appear to be following Openreach around on recent/current builds.