LightSpeed Broadband Add 7 East England Towns to FTTP Rollout

UK ISP LightSpeed Broadband, which is deploying a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across the East of England, has today celebrated their first anniversary by announcing that they’ve managed to cover 30,000 premises and have expanded their build to include a total of 32 towns across the region.

The operator currently aims to cover an initial 200,000 premises (homes and businesses) across the East of England region by the end of 2022 and, after that, they hold a longer-term ambition to reach 1 million premises by the end of 2025.

In terms of funding, the provider’s original £55m investment came from AtmosClear Investments, Kompass Kapital and Thesaurium, which was recently boosted by £60m from the Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund (here). We should point out that their original investment also included the “opportunity” to raise their funding up to £300 million as work progresses (here).

LightSpeed started their rollout in April last year in 10 towns across South Lincolnshire and West Norfolk. Thousands of customers are now being added every week in the towns of Stamford, Boston, Spalding and Market Deeping – and with another 5 towns – Bourne, Holbeach, King’s Lynn and Skegness – are planned to go live this month.

The build has since expanded across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex and is ongoing in 25 towns across the region, with a further 7 towns now being added to the network. The new towns are: Attleborough and Downham Market in Norfolk; Haverhill, Wivenhoe and Woodham Ferrers in Essex; Soham in Cambridgeshire and Oakham in Rutland.

Steve Haines, Deputy Chairman of LightSpeed Broadband, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We have literally been moving at ‘light speed’ to build our network and deliver our vision of becoming a leading regional player in the East of England. We are now connecting customers from across our first wave of towns and have created a strong regionally based team with the aim of providing a fantastic local customer experience.

We are on track to reach our target of passing 200,000 homes and businesses across South Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex by the end of this year, and I am thrilled we are in such a strong position after just one year!”

LightSpeed currently employs more than 100 people and more than 55 jobs are based across the region (locally). Much like other altnets, one of their biggest challenges is likely to be the fact that they aren’t the only network operator building gigabit-capable broadband infrastructure across many of their listed locations.

New customers will typically pay £39.95 per month on a 24-month term in order to access their 1000Mbps symmetric speed broadband package, which includes a Wi-Fi 6 wireless router and no in contract price rises. A £30 one-off setup fee is applicable.