Progress Update on N.Ireland Project Stratum Full Fibre Rollout

The Department for the Economy (DfE) in Northern Ireland has issued a brief progress update on their £197m state aid supported Project Stratum scheme, which is working with UK ISP Fibrus to spread a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across 85,000 premises in rural areas by March 2025.

We should point out that the original contract aimed to cover a little over 76,000 premises by December 2023, but the recent move to cover an extra 8,500 premises (£32m extension deal) does mask a delay to the rollout plan. The original goal of 76,000 premises, according to the DfE, will now be reached “by the end of 2024“, while the additional 8,500 premises will be completed by March 2025.

To date, the update states that Fibrus has completed infrastructure deployment work to over 22,000 premises and “all scheduled builds in seven areas for this quarter are on track to be delivered in line with deployment targets“. Fibrus is also said to be “on track to deploy new broadband infrastructure” to a total of more than 50,000 premises by the end of this calendar year.

More than 10,000 “fibre poles” (telegraph poles) have so far been planted via the project, and 2,000 kilometres of fibre cable have been installed, despite challenges to working conditions that the contractor and its subcontractors have faced during the pandemic.

Gordon Lyons, N.I Economy Minister, said:

“As a result of our continued public investment in broadband infrastructure the connectivity gap in Northern Ireland is rapidly closing at superfast levels. Once completed, all premises under Project Stratum will be able to benefit from access to gigabit-capable full-fibre broadband. It’s also important to remember that the vast majority of these homes and businesses are in rural areas of Northern Ireland and Project Stratum will be transforming the connectivity fortunes of citizens benefiting from this much-needed public intervention.

Connectivity is repeatedly mentioned to me by investors and businesses in Northern Ireland as being key for economic growth. Through investment in Project Stratum we are helping to secure the future progress and economic development for the whole of Northern Ireland.”

We should point out that the figures are much bigger if we also include Fibrus’ separate commercial builds, which would push the total completed so far up to 104,381 premises (here). The operator now expects to cover an overall total of 250,000 premises by the end of the year, although we assume this will also include their new build in England.

Customers of the provider 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.