Wildanet Appoint New Leaders for Cornwall’s Gigabit Broadband Rollout

Rural UK ISP Wildanet, which last year started the £50m rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network in Cornwall (here), has appointed Helen Wylde to be its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Virgin Media’s former COO, Paul Buttery, to join as Chair of the Board.

The operator has already begun to deploy their new network to thousands of premises both in and around the Liskeard, Callington and Torpoint areas. However, we still know very little about their future rollout plan and targets, although previous announcements have hinted at a 3-year deployment that would aim to serve 60% of Cornwall’s properties (some of this will be via their older FWA network).

Naturally, major investment boosts are often followed by changes in leadership. In this case, that means appointing Helen Wylde as CEO and Paul Buttery as Chair. Helen’s experience spans senior roles at Vodafone, O2, Parcelforce and the Transport Systems & Connected Places Catapult, among other things.

By comparison, Paul is best known for being Virgin Media’s former COO and helping to lead their Project Lightning network expansion, but he also has more than 40 years’ of experience in the telecoms industry – spanning BT, Verizon, Cable & Wireless and NTL:Telewest.

Helen Wylde said:

“I’m delighted to be taking this role. Wildanet is a dynamic, customer-focussed business with innovation at its core and a clear mission to drive digital inclusion. We have a fantastic team here, united by a passion that we’re not just in business to offer a service; we are making sure that future generations of people in Cornwall and the South West are connected to the internet, can work wherever they want to work and have access to all the opportunities that fast, reliable broadband opens up.”

Paul Buttery said:

“There is a burning need for broadband and a quality telecommunications experience in Cornwall and the South West, which is currently underserved.

To be able to really serve these rural areas you need a blend of wireless and fibre to accommodate the different geographies and Wildanet is uniquely positioned to do that in a way which can be transformational for communities, employment, education and business opportunities here. I’m excited to be coming in at the start of the roll out and to be able to add my experiences from major national network roll-outs to the considerable expertise within the Wildanet team.”

It’s worth pointing out that Openreach’s FTTP network already covers a significant amount of Cornwall, although a lot of that used older optical kit from ECI, which limited its top download speed to 330Mbps (here). Suffice to say, there’s room for improvement and a bit of extra competition is always welcome.

Meanwhile Wildanet’s former CEO, Ian Calvert, who doesn’t get a mention in today’s announcement, remains in the position of Founder and Deputy Chairman.