Quickline Trial Gives Ultrafast Broadband to North Yorkshire Villages

UK ISP Quickline has successfully connected up a number of small rural villages in the Coverdale area of North Yorkshire to a wireless 5G “ultrafast broadband” network, which forms part of a new £6.4m Government supported project – Mobile Access North Yorkshire (MANY) – that was first announced back in 2020 (here).

At present around 1,000 people live in the remote Coverdale area – covering the villages of Carlton, West Scrafton, Melmerby and Agglethorpe, which sit at the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. As you might expect, broadband speeds in most of this area leave much to be desired.

The MANY project is actually a collection of different trials, and one of those involves the Coverdale deployment. The consortium involved includes aql, Cybermoor 5G Services, Flo-culture, Lancaster University, Quickline, SafeNetics, the University of York and Wireless Coverage.

The official press release doesn’t tell us much, only that the ISP has deployed some form of 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) connectivity up to 9 kilometres from the nearest mast, with the ambition to extend this up to 18km as the technology matures. But we believe that they’re using the same Standalone 5G (SA) technology as touted earlier this year (here), which could hit speeds of up to 450Mbps (rising to gigabit speeds this summer).

This would mean that Quickline are probably leveraging the N77 Shared Access Licence from Ofcom via an OpenRAN approach (n77 tends to mean the 3GPP New Radio band for 3.3 – 4.2GHz).

Sean Royce, CEO of Quickline, said:

“This is a perfect example of how we are delivering life-changing services to individuals, businesses and communities in rural areas that have previously been ignored by other providers.

Having lightning fast, reliable internet is an absolute necessity, and this project will ensure that the connectivity received in this part of North Yorkshire will far exceed even that experienced by others in many towns and cities right across the UK.

It is also vital in terms of levelling up the North. Rural businesses can start to compete with other regions on a more level playing field and it will open up new markets for them.

People can confidently work from home, children and students can access online lessons and lectures, they can socialise, stream music, listen to podcasts and watch TV programmes as well as shop online.

These are all basic needs and wants – and we are thrilled to be paving the way for communities in the most isolated parts of North Yorkshire.”

The Government are currently busy trying to find new technologies and solutions to help extend gigabit-capable or ultrafast broadband to those in the final 0.3% of “very hard to reach” premises (here), which is where the results from the MANY project could come in handy. But that will depend on key considerations, such as the cost per premises passed and the ability of ISPs to provide such services to every corner of the UK that request it.

In terms of the service itself, we did a bit of digging and uncovered the packages that homes in this area are being offered. Prices start at £35 per month (currently discounted to £25) for an unlimited 50Mbps (15Mbps upload) package on a 24-month term with a free router and installation, which rises to £65 (discounted to £55) if you want their top 200Mbps (30Mbps upload) tier. Business users get similar speeds.

Meanwhile, Quickline itself is currently being supported by investment from Northleaf Capital Partners, which acquired the company in June 2021 and is helping to fuel their future ambition to cover 500,000 UK premises via a mix of FTTP and FWA broadband infrastructure (here).