Swish Fibre Give Progress Update on Home Counties FTTP Build

UK ISP Swish Fibre, which is deploying a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 250,000 premises across the Home Counties of England, has today given a brief progress update on their build and appointed Nigel Sudell to their Senior Leadership Team, as Chief Integration Officer (CIO).

In terms of the operator’s latest progress, Swish are now live in 11 of the initial 33 towns listed in their launch plans – including Marlow, Gerrards Cross, Princes Risborough, Beaconsfield, Bourne End, Haslemere, Farnham, Godalming, Thame, Chinnor and Flackwell Heath. In the coming weeks those locations will also be joined by customers in Great Missenden and Ascot.

Meanwhile, the build continues in Sunningdale, Bagshot, Hazlemere & Penn, Wooburn Green and Alton, with a further 20+ towns after that due to benefit from the service during 2022. Much of this work is being funded by Swish Fibre’s owner Fern Trading, which is backing them with an investment of £225m+.

On top of that, the operator has just appointed Nigel Sudell to be its new CIO. Nigel joins from fellow fibre ISP Airband, where he held the role of Operations Director from September 2020. Furthermore, he holds over 20 years’ experience in the Telecoms sector across various Operations, Construction and Technology roles at Telefonica, giffgaff, TalkTalk and Fibre Nation.

Brice Yharrassarry, CEO of Swish Fibre, said:

“I am really excited to welcome Nigel as a member of our SLT. Nigel will play a crucial role in delivering our ambitious plans for inorganic growth, a key pillar of our expansion programme.”

One other development of note is that Swish recently established a new subsidiary – Swish Fibre Contracting Limited, which is said to be part of the Swish Fibre Group and led by Director Michael Channing-Phillips. But the provider doesn’t say precisely why they’ve done this, only that the new subsidiary will further support the Groups’ rollout plans.

Finally, Nigel Sudell will begin his role as CIO from Monday 28th February. All of this comes only a couple of months after the operator rescued troubled FTTP builder People’s Fibre after they fell into administration (here).