ISP Fibrus Get GBP220m to Extend N.Ireland Full Fibre Rollout

Alternative network and UK ISP Fibrus has today secured a further investment boost of £220m from a consortium of banks, including the UK Infrastructure Bank, which will be used to extend their existing rollout of a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in Northern Ireland to 330,000 premises.

The operator’s full fibre infrastructure has so far managed to cover 120,000 premises (up from 104k in Feb 2022 and 58,000 premises in August 2021), which includes delivery under both their state aid supported deployments via Project Stratum (85,000 premises) and their separate commercial builds across both N.Ireland and the Northern England.

In England alone, Fibrus’ current goal is to cover 300,000 premises in “118 regional towns” across parts of Cumbria, Northumberland and North Yorkshire by the end of 2024 (here). By comparison, today’s announcement is focused exclusively on their build in Northern Ireland, which takes their investment in the country to £0.5bn and will see them reach a total of 330,000 previously underserved homes.

The figure of £0.5bn above also includes public and private capital from Project Stratum – the NI Executive scheme, which has provided a total of £197m to boost rural broadband connections. Fibrus currently expects to cover an overall total of 250,000 UK premises by the end of the year, with many more to follow over the next few years.

Colin Hutchinson, CFO of Fibrus, said:

“We are very well aware of the importance of high-speed broadband across Northern Ireland and with every connection we make, we are making lives better. Too many homes and businesses have been left behind by other broadband providers and that is not acceptable.

This latest investment helps us to meet our current plan of connecting 330,000 premises and we are already well ahead of schedule. Together we are improving lives, connecting communities, and growing the economy. We are making Northern Ireland a better place to live, to work and to invest in.”

John Flint, CEO of the UK Infrastructure Bank, said:

“I am very pleased that we can play a part in supporting homes and businesses across Northern Ireland to access fast and reliable broadband.”

Just for some context, there are currently 814,210 households in Northern Ireland (here). By comparison, Openreach are this month expected to have extended their own FTTP network to cover over 610,000 premises (roughly 75%), but that figure also includes thousands of business premises. Suffice to say, today’s deal will eventually cement Fibrus’ position as the third major broadband network in N.Ireland, next to Openreach (BT) and Virgin Media (VMO2).

Customers of Fibrus typically pay from £39.99 per month (currently discounted to £19.99 – but only in their commercial areas) for an unlimited 150Mbps package with a router and free installation, which rises to £59.99 per month for their top 1000Mbps tier on a 12-month contract term.